Lyrically Speaking: Droopy the Broke Baller- Rhee and Mayor Fenty

Fourth Edition

 

With this video on repeat I transport back to the days when I sat in my Auburn University dorm in the heart of Dixie waiting for the day when I could finally get a chance to see the CHOCOLATE City. Just to move here in 2004 and feel like I stepped in the heart of Spokane, Washington back in ’95 when you would hug a stranger just because they were black. Finding a black person living in the center of DC is like trying to find Waldo in a candy cane factory. I swear if Lincoln wasnt a president they would tear down the Lincoln Theater too because he freed the slaves and they’d need to gentrify (new word) that too & call it Bush Theater.

So who is this genius in the video, you ask? Well this is my poetical goon & big brother…none other than Droopy the Broke Baller! With many awards and successes under his belt, host at the famous Busboys and Poets, slam teams on his resume and the weekly co-host of the infamous Spit Dat here in DC every Thursday….Droopy is no stranger to bringing forth the issues that others are too afraid to bring to the kitchen to cook, let alone actually bring to the table and serve to the public. Normally known as the Black Weird Al Yankovic and Prince of Parody, he is making people think through the use of comedy….but even then they say that truth is told in jest. At best, he will always make you think. I know from first hand, after sitting for 2 hours and critiquing his CD track by track (b/c he asked and I took it literally…lol),and learning to appreciate the dedication that he has for educating through humor….but educating never the less!

You don’t have to live or walk the halls of the U Street corridors here in Washington, DC to get the gist of what Droopy is referring too. Take away Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty and replace them with any Chancellor of Public Schools and any Mayor and I am sure that unless you live in the DOnald Trump’s libing room….you’ll feel the sentiments of his words. High rent, segregation in an age of “Yes,We Can”s, and people being pushed to the edge of the District to Virginia and Maryland are all too common these days. Here in the District, we call this metropolitan the DMV for DC, Maryland and Virginia, but daily is seems like  it’s the D telling those of darker skin to M(o)V(e). And not to Beverly Hills, that is…..but to Prince Georges County.

And you would think that anyone who went to school to be put in a leadership position that deals with education would be smart enough  to know that you don’t mess up your very own future by jacking up the school system. I guess Rhee never got that lesson. I saw a school on Georgia Ave get knocked down and replaced by a basketball court. If that isn’t sending a kid a message, I have no clue what else is.  It’s as if they are screaming to the kids in the overcrowded math classes with 40 kids to one teacher, who doesn’t give a damn that they could care less if you focus on class, as long as you have a court to play on you better not rob us. It’s a shame that the U.S. Capitol has some of the worst school conditions in the entire country….and they say that everything starts at the head. But I guess as long as your children are in the private schools, you could care less. I don’t have kids of my own, but I am smart enough to know that those kids who are failing math and getting pushed through will one day be the very same adults who issue your critical heart medication.  2 CCs of  dumbass plus 8 CCs of too much of this will kill you and .5 CC of you should have planned better. Think on it! I know this from example from an ex who called the Washington Monument “that pencil looking building” who just so happened to be in school for nursing and admits to cheating on tests. Remind me to NEVER go to the hospital where he works in case of an emergency.

Now on to ex-Mayor Fenty…..I am just happy that I no longer live directly in the District. He was too bold for his health. He pretended as if we worked for him. The only time he was seen out in public was when he would stand on the corner of Michigan Ave & North Capitol Street waving his green signs trying to distract you from all of the shit he didn’t do during his term. You would have thought that he was the president the way he paraded around the District. He went on trips and wouldn’t tell anyone when he was leaving or if he was using political funding. Needless to say, he got voted out of the office and no last-minute ditch efforts to “write-in” his name on ballots could have made people feel otherwise.

As far as this video goes….Well Done, Goon. This is well executed in cinematography, contrast, format, and lyrics. I would never expect less from you…..THIS is the birth of change. THIS is what poetry was intended to do. THIS is what gets me up in the morning, put paper to pen and dare you to challenge me. I take my hat off you, big bro…. I be damned if you havent done it yet again!  Check him out on Facebook and on Twitter…this is a cat that everyone needs to put on their roster.

Check out his latest project:

Sincerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~

Writer’s Block: D.O.C Honored by Katie Russo

      

        One of my mottos is that “The best compliment that you could ever give truth is a mirror” and I think I now have a tangible source of evidence to prove exactly what I meant by that. Someone thought that one of my poems touched them in such a manner that they would write a “reply” poem for the other demographic that was not captured in my original poem. It is powerful, it is humbling, and it is beautiful. It puts a different spin on what my poem was created for, it makes me understand my original poem better, and it makes me feel as if I have to work harder to make the reality of my words available for the lips of those who feel as if they cant speak those words on their own. My eyes are open now…. as well as my ears, and I am able to receive hope better because of this “reply” poem.

        Domestic Violence is a topic that is very close to my heart. Someone very close to me was/is in the midst of it and no matter what you try to do….it is their battle. It is a lesson of letting go and waiting. One of the most painful things is to be helpless and hopeless and pray that they will come to their own self-worth and respect before it is too late. So a few years ago, when I got the news of this abusive situation, I vented to a then friend and the topic for the poem came to life. She said that if a guy ever beat her he would be DOA before anyone could ever revive him at the hospital. I joked and said that he would be D.O.C….. and the poem was born. Here is my poem D.O.C.

“D.O.C”

(by 2Deep)

Your honor
In the case of The State vs. 2Deep The Poetess
I,
The justified assailant
Would like to plead the newly instated charge of Premeditated Self-Defense

Because as a child,

I made up my mind that no man was ever going to lay his hands on me

So after several chick flicks

And watching self-defense workout tapes to Dixie Chicks’ “Earl’s Gotta Die”

I deemed myself fully equipped to handle any man who THOUGHT that he was bold enough to threaten my self-preservation

So I present to you, Exhibit A

I present to you…

His Death Certificate

Yes, sir

That is correct

D.O.C. stands for Dead on Contact

Because he was letting me know of his impending suicide

Through traditional methods of homicide

The moment that his person violently met with my person

So that time of death you see stated there, Your Honor,

Is the moment in which his hand actually touched me

Because the moments following that,

Which actually lead to his last breath,

Were merely inconsequential

Now I present to you Exhibit B

This the map with the exact longitude and latitude

Give or take a stomp or two

Of where his sorry ass now resides

I told his mother,

“Don’t thank me for saving you on funeral costs

Just fix the heel on my boot,

patch up the hole in my floor

And get every female in your family’s tubes tied

So that no one else

Will ever have to suffer from another sorry excuse of an XY chromosome every again.”

And, Your Honor,

I know that this looks like murder

But I promise you it was self-defense

Premeditated?

Yes!

But only because I know my self-worth

But self-defense never the less

And if he were alive today

He, too, would tell you that he didn’t think I could defend myself so well

So I think that my punishment should be to get in a relationship with another sorry ass bastard

Because I will not waste tax payer dollars by filing police reports

Nor will I waste precious emergency room pace

Because you see, I live by a 2-Hit-Die Rule

You hit me

You hit the floor

You die

I am unselfish in this matter, Your Honor

Because there are women out there who need me

And if they can’t have me

They at least need to have my self-esteem

Because there’s not a creation created on this Earth bad enough to put his hands on me

EXCEPT for the devil

And even he’s smart enough to send dumbasses like this to do his dirty work

And we see how that turned out

So I guess that now’s the time for me to admit

That, yes, Sleep & I are having an affair on the side

Therefore, I will not stay up late at nights nursing bruises while he gets to sleep soundly

Nor will I try to figure out what it is that I did or did not do today that caused him to lay his hands on me

So no, Your Honor

I will not apologize for him thinking of me as a victim & me rising as a victor

But I am sorry that his damn daddy didn’t teach him who not to put his fucking hands on

SO, Your Honor, much like that motherfucker who misjudged me

I rest!

 

         For years people have laughed at the “2-Hit-Die Rule” while others have thanked me for bringing life to the topic in such a comedic manner. Either way, people have enjoyed it. I think it spreads a message. And several times I look out into the audience and I see the women nodding and agreeing with me aloud, but I also see one or two women who are either glancing at their men or are very  non-responsive to the poem. I always wondered why that is but never put much thought into it. That was my fault…. my shortcoming to not explore.

        But when one door closes, another door opens. My window of opportunity came in the form of an amazing poet; Katie Russo. Katie is an amazing teacher, journalist, poet and an overall amazing person. I met her a year ago at one of my poetry shows that I host and she has been a beacon of light amongst the darker side of this business. She asked about slam and wanted to find out the inner workers. She emailed me requesting information, wanted to know more spots where she could hear other poets, and she yearned to soak up as much information that I was willing to provide her. She wanted to study it and perfect her craft, and I honestly respected every aspect of her work ethic, so it would be no surprise that I would continue to respect her efforts in honoring my poem, D.O.C.

        Last night she was my featured artist at the open mic I hosted. I was so excited!!!! She revealed to me that she had a reply poem for the other side of my poem. She asked me to introduce her set by doing D.O.C. so that the crowd could see both sides of the spectrum, and I obliged. It was my honor to do so. And as she reaches the mic she begins to perform her poem, Conviction:

Conviction-

(by Katherine Russo)

 

You say it with such conviction,

your syllables drip with perfect diction,

You say you’ll never let a man put you in that position,

and I begin to blush

sink back into the green cushion booth

wooden table,

pen to paper,

ashamed to write this truth,

that I do wish that I could be like you.

 

I know what I used to see when I looked at me;

a palatable acoustic youth.

So unaware that well paid white guys could be abusive too.

 

I never knew when I saw his blue eyes

heard his jokes,

listened to him talk about my red hair

and offer me a smoke

that his fists were capable of anything other than

boxing,

his favorite hobby.

I thought the only time I’d see him swing

was in pursuit of muscled body;

I was mistaken.

Clenched fists didn’t just exist hunched over a computer

data computing

disgusting to me how I thought I was worth muting

because abuse didn’t look like him

and it certainly didn’t look like me

and these bruises that I have are the result of too much free

I said too much,

he drank too much,

someone hit someone but I’m the only one bruised because,

well,

I hit like a girl.

 

And girls like me are above things like these

so silently I ignored what’s so painfully obvious to see;

that I spent too many nights adorning bourbon soaked bruises in afternoons meant to be mornings

that I refused to see every road sign,

 flashing light telling me to run from this place id come to be,

 because I let someone take over all my common sense

and then devour me.

 

But then I remembered,

there was a time when I spoke with like conviction

my syllables steeped in perfect diction

I said I’d never let a man put me in that position,

and now in what feels like twisted fiction I have come to speak the truth;

until I met him,

turned into her

I was; Just. Like. You.

 

        Silence! She had performed the crowd into a trance. All I could do was nod my head and say, “Wow”. Even her boyfriend, who was supposed to record the performance, had forgotten to even turn the camera on. She was amazing. I had to confess that I think she out-wrote me! Her style, cadence and ability to draw a picturesque emotion is unbelievable.

        She mentioned how my somewhat mentoring her int his poetry field has helped her “write to speak” skills and her “write to read” skills as well. I am honored… but I think …no, I KNOW, she had the skills all along…I just may have given her an avenue to express them to where people could hear them. I take no other credit than giving her a stage….she is naturally skilled.

        I am humbled, that she would write a reply piece to my poem. Yet, I am also sadden that I never thought about the women who have YET to capture the courage that drips from my poem. I’m glad someone was able to do so. But i think that this poem speaks to more than just abuse…there is more here. I think there is a huge part of this poem that speaks to the judgmental person who screams they would never do something and then by twist of fate are forced to do exactly what they said they would never do. Here lies the truth that we all hide, cover with MAC and blame on self-propelled kitchen cabinets and loose stair railings. It makes you face your own issues and remember a time when you thought you were strong and long for the days when you can be again.

        One of the strongest lines, to me, is “disgusting to me how I thought I was worth muting”; it screamed at me. As much as I talk…trust me I talk a lot. There are times when I feel like I should be hushed just because someone else said I should be or made attempts to hush me. Long story… but just know that it spoke to me. And I thank her for shaking that part of my conscience awake from its denial.

        So between this poem and another poem by a good friend of mine…. I was in tears and deep thought last night. It was an amazing night of poetry and I was glad that I had an opportunity to witness it all, to be int he presence of such amazing company and to be honored by such an amazing poet. There is more wonderful things coming from Katie Russo…..I bet my pension on that. I am just blessed to be in her presence and to watch her work, to trust me with pieces of her journey and to have her give feedback of my work. I am inspired to write today because of her…..and that takes a lot of magic. She has the magic to make me put pen to paper and create in honor of her inspiration. Google her!!! Like Kom Plex says, she’s “googleable” lol.

Sincerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~

P90X Journey: Day 31

Umm… okay, this morning my entire body turned traitor. I woke up and hour before my alarm and I had stomach pains that I had no clue where they were coming from. I had the urge to use the restroom but couldn’t and I was extremely tired and fatigued. THIS WAS TOO MUCH! I think my body is trying to get back into the swing of things after last week and I am just jumping right back into P90X like a week of sickness wasnt a big deal. My digestive track is crying out for attention and I have no reason why. I ate cereal this morning and was in so much pain I almost wanted to call out of work again. This has to get better. I am watching my diet closer too.

So, thankfully I only have to do Core Synergenics (sp) tonight. I was going to workout this morning but I honestly felt too fatigued to do it. WHich is sad because it would have been nice to get it out of the way. I also have to squeeze in a walk/run ont he treadmill at the gym tonight. Since I only have one P90X exercise to do I have to get back into the gym that I still pay my membership dues and havent visited since June. Shame, yet true. It can be an hour of just straight up walking for all I care, I just have to put my face back in that gym. If the pool wasnt so cold, I would go and hop in that and swim for a little bit. I may go sit in the steamroom. So yeh, that is what I may do tonight.  I may need to buy a little book light so that I can sit in the steam room and read for a little bit. Cant take my headphones in there so I may want to read to keep from falling asleep. So, P90X for an hour and the gym treadmill for 30mins (only b/c the gym wont let you keep it for longer than that) and probably the steam room or another cardio machine for another 30 mins. I think I am going to love tonight. Will keep you posted. Right now (11am) my pedometer says 2404 steps…..the day is young. I want to make it to 10,000 OUTSIDE of my workout today. I dont care what it takes, I will have to make 10,000 steps today even if it takes me marching in place…..that counts,right?

WORKOUT

Okay, soooooo This is going to turn into another blog all on its own, but I went home expecting for my ex to have plans for us to go out…strictly as friends. I felt I was being harsh on him for cutting him off and told him that he could earn my friendship back if he tried. He said he would keep his word ( which is why we aren’t together now…because that negro couldn’t keep his word if Jesus tatted it to his chest). So I got in the house and I ate to Red Hots (hot dogs) and I sat on the couch. My intuition tapped me and said, “Bitch, if you don’t get up and workout now I will sabotage your whole fitness goal. You know damn well this negro is not gonna keep his word.” I looked at the clock and it was 6:50. I didn’t even have time to let the food digest all that good, but I hopped into action and put on my workout clothes and popped in Core Synergistics because Plyometrics is too much for me.  I sweated and I fought back tears, every time I wanted to cry I just had to dig a little deeper. When the kicks came into play I felt like I was kicking him dead in his throat! I got down and did knee push-ups and wall push-ups but I kept it moving and wouldn’t stop. I didn’t do the bonus workouts because my emotions were getting the best of me. Actually, I don’t even think that I cooled down. I just got up and took a shower, then I came back and blocked his phone number and erased him from all of my social network pages. Felt good to do it but still didn’t make me feel any better. I was in bed by 9:30pm.

I am glad that I worked out before I got too upset and then I would have talked myself out of it. I think that I am learning to listen to my intuition and workout when I need to workout or suffer the consequences. These Doubles workouts I think are trying to my body but I will make it…. I have to make it under 220 by Dec 11th.  Next week I think I will do an all vegetarian diet but I wonder how much strength will I have to do these workouts. Who knows. I need to push, in a healthy way and make this work!!!!  Thanks for reading.

Drank a Pitcher of  Water? 1/2 of a pitcher

Close to the Diet today? Really, all I ate was cereal…my stomach had me scared to eat anything else

Completed Yoga in 1 day? N/A

Completed Ab Ripper X? N/A

Pedometer Steps: 7834/10,000

Worked out this Morning? 1/3wk no workout this morning

Treadmill or Walk/run: x/3wk

Took the stairs at work? 2x up and 1 time down already today (11am)

SIncerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~

P90X Journey: Day 30

16 Nov 10

This Morning…… I hit snooze so many times that I think it may not work properly tomorrow. I just could not get out of bed as early as I would have liked. WOW!!!! Okay, so I finally got moving. I am going to do doubles just to put in some work in the 30 days leading up to my birthday cruise. I figure if I do the P90X Doubles then it should put things into overdrive. Lord only knows if this will actually work, but it can’t hurt. I only want to lose 10 lbs this month. Then I will be under my goal of 220 by the time I step foot on the cruise.

This morning I did Cardio X. I must admit that I wasnt doing it full-out. I was light-headed and dizzy & hungry. My stomach started to hurt and I had to stop one exercise before the cool down, but I made it. I have to figure out how to get enough energy in my system at night to last me through morning workouts. Will have to research, because I didn’t like that feeling at all. I drank a lot of water and hope to get through at least a pitcher by tonight.  Right now it is saying that I have 798 steps. I swear I stepped more than that…but again… it’s this janky pedometer. I was going to take the stairs this morning but a co-worker left her badge at home so I had to escort her via elevator because she wasnt going to take the stairs. lol. Shame.

Today really is like starting all over since I was sick last week. I have to get my mind back in the right spot and my body to get back healthy. Because it is still recovering from the infection. It sucks…. but I will get better. Okay… time for lunch.

WORKOUT

So, I came home and I dove right into the Chest, Back and Triceps DVD. I used my Iron Gym pull-up bar for push-ups like they say that you can…..man I felt that burn in my groin…lol. I tried to do it like a regular straight leg push up and my stomach clenched so hard I almost peed on myself so I went back to my knees. I have to use a pillow on my knees because of how hard my floor is and my floating patella still scare me. I have a fear I will be working out and my knee cap is gonna snap to the side like it use to back in high school. This morning my shoulders and back are BURNING!! DO you hear me?! BURNING!!!! I was proud of myself.

It was pretty rough getting back into the groove of things after having been sick for a week. Especially since this was my second workout of the day. I could have easily thrown in the towel and said I already worked out for the day and been cool with that. But I know better. I have all of these holiday meals and vacations dead smack in the middle of this Phase of 30 days and I have to put in the extra work just to pray that I stay even.  I can’t let anything stop me from getting below 220lbs. By the time I step on a plane on Dec 11th headed to Miami, I want the scale to say 219.9999999 lbs. I may not get on the plane if I don’t make that goal. I am dead ass serious! This is more than vanity to me, this is my life…the habits that I want to take with me from this day forward. I can’t go into my 30th birthday with a set-back. I have to go into it with a small victory that drives me & motivates me to keep moving forward. I already told my homegirl that I have to get up and hit the gym every day on the cruise. I have to. Sounds weird to say, but I can’t let my celebration set me back either. It will be less stressful than P90X but it will be SOMETHING!!! Then our walking around the different ports every day will help too. I just have to set up a plan and keep it moving. I also have to watch what I eat while on the ship. I can have a blast, but know what I am getting myself into & make wise decisions.

When Ab Ripper came on I sped through those exercises without the DVD…I had to go my pace without getting psyched out. But in the end I had to stop. I started to feel what I call the “drunken burp” where you feel like you have to burp but if you do something else might come up behind it. I felt real light-headed and nauseous so I had to call it quits to exercises before the end; the leg climber and the Mason twist. I had to know my limits. And I had reached them. I am typing this and forgot to bring my workout stats with me… but I will probably post them tomorrow so you can see what I did and/or how I did. Thanks for reading.

Daily Stats

Drank a Pitcher of  Water? 3/4 of a Brita water pitcher

Close to the Diet today? ummm… does the Chick-fil-a sandwich count

Completed Yoga in 1 day? N/A

Completed Ab Ripper X? Did all but the Leg climb & Mason Twist

Pedometer Steps: 5858/10,000

Worked out this Morning? YES!!! 1/3 for this wk

Treadmill or Walk/run: x/3wk

Took the stairs at work? NOPE

Sincerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~

Lyrically Speaking: Waka Flocka-No Hands

Second Edition

        Like Waka Flocka at all of his paid performances, I am at a loss for words. I mean, I will make an honest attempt to give some form of props in the middle of this mess….but no promises.

        Waka Flaka’s No Hands is a very trendy and catchy beat and chorus that has teens from DC to Japan screaming “Look ma, no hands” and even though I have been guilty of bobbing to it in my own house and subconsciously learning the lyrics thanks to constant rotation on the radio, I wouldn’t want anyone else learning it. Hypocrite? Yes, and rightfully so. I’m old enough to know what the lyrics of the song mean. I wish I could sit a class down and deconstruct these lyrics. It’s the teen group that I want to stop from bobbing to this, because the girls are the first ones to jump up and prove to the boys that they are the best “No Hands” chick in the building, and the boys continue to think that treating these girls as such is what the girls want because they aren’t showing them otherwise.

        I remember when Hip-Hop use to make us think, you to get you amped up to do something, but now this rap stuff is for no other use than to degrade and get your head bobbing in the club. Being, indirectly, from the south you would think that I was proud of the south’s musical (lack of) achievements. I mean, the Stanky Leg and No Hands should be enough to make me rep’ my city….right? Not so much. Okay…enough of my banter… lets look at these lyrics. The same lyrics that get bleeped out on the radio and make it sound just a little bit cleaner than what it was ever intended to be……those edited lyrics are WAY better than what is said.

Chorus:

Roscoe;Chorus:]
Girl the way you’re movin’
Got me in a trance
DJ turn me up
Ladies dis yo jam
I’ma sip Moscato
And you ‘gon lose dem pants
Then I’ma throw this money
While you do it with no hands
Girl drop it to the flo’
I love the way yo booty go
All I want to do is sit back
And watch you move
And I’ll proceed to throw this cash

 

        Fiiiiiiiirst off! Roscoe has a daughter. I keep trying to tell people how this whole ” I will corrupt your sons and daughters while I protect my own seed” mentality is a bunch of bullshit! Some lil boy is going to grow up thinking that this is how to treat a woman, therefore making his daughter’s chances of finding a decent man who doesn’t want her just for her money slim to impossible!!! I can’t shout this enough. So he is telling you that this is your song & you’ve got to take your pants off BEFORE he’ll give you any money. Okay… on to the king of stupidity.

Verse 1:

Waka;Verse 1:]
(Waka, Waka, Waka, Flocka, Whoa, Whoa)
All that ass
In yo jeans
Can Wale beat
Can Roscoe skeet
Long hair she don’t care
When she walk she get stares
Brown skin or a yellow-bone
DJ this my favorite song
So I’ma make it thunderstorm
Bud, want it, Flocka, yea
Blowin’ ,fuck it, i dont care
Chests’ flyin’ everywhere
Got my partner Roscoe, like bruh
I’m drinkin’, help, can’t you tell
Booze help me hit them 15 steps
I’m fuckin’, well i’m tryna hit the hotel
With 2 girls that swallow me
Take this dick while swallow
Pay moscato got her freaky
Aye you got me in a trance
Please take off yo pants
Pussy pop on her handstand
You got me sweatin’
Please pass me a fan damn!

        After the “Shawt Bus Shawty intro……(Waka Waka Waka Waka). Ummmm…. So, he doesn’t even want to sleep with you. He just wants to ask if his boy can beat it and then can his OTHER boy skeet it? Classy! I mean…this should have all the girls out on the dance floor dancing like coons, booty tooted up in the air! And one wants to beat it…..sooooo is the other sitting in the corner holding his skeet? Or is he beating himself while the other beats and then they tag team WWE style while one now skeets on her and the other contains his skeet because that wasnt apart of the contractual agreement? Okay… I thought too much into that, but why say it if it doesn’t make any logical sense? So…further in the verse you are only good enough to suck him off because he doesn’t think you’re quite fuckable material because you might get pregnant and he doesn’t want that. And the first southern grammatical stab is “Chests'” ….pronounced by Waka as “Chest-is” LMAO!!! You showl is edjumikated. And I think he had a bout with schizophrenia in the middle when we asked himself if he wanted bud…and then answered himself. But….next!

After a flare of the chorus again……..

Verse 2:

[Wale;Verse 2:]
(Aye, aye, Wale, uh)
She said look ma no hands
She said look ma no hands
And no darling I don’t dance
And, I’m with Roscoe, I’m with Waka
I think i deserve a chance
I’m a bad mothafucka
Gon’ ask some mothafuckas
A young handsome mothafucka
I sling that wood
I just nun chuck ’em
And, who you wit
And, what’s yo name
And, you not hear boo, I’m Wale
And, that D.C. shit I rep all day
And, my eyes red cuz of all that haze
Don’t blow my high
Let me shine
Drumma on the beat
Let me take my time
Nigga want beef we can take it outside
Fight for what broad
These hoes ain’t mine
Is you out yo mind
You out yo league
I sweat no bitches
Just sweat out weaves
Where our tracks
Let me do my thing
I got 16, for this Roscoe thing
But, i’m almost done
Let me get back to it
Whole lotta loud
And a little backwood
Whole lotta money
Big tip I would
I put her on the train
Little engine could, bitch

 

        I know this is just a song, but she was proud enough to show her mother how she does it without hands? I wish I would!!! My mother would hop up from the grave and pimp slap me with the withering hang of my ancestors if I EVER did that in front of her. I’m still afraid to do stuff in my own house in fear that her spirit can see… & I am grown! lol. Nunchucks are weapons…..domestic violence is not cute metaphorically or literally….NEXT! Ummm what the fuck does “You not hear” mean? Is that suppose to be “you can’t hear” or “havent you heard” or am I bugging? Nope, not bugging… he did graduate from PG County public schools. I know… I live here…lmao! And just in case you thought that he would protect your honor after you gave up the ass…. think again! You hoes arent his! lol And just when you wanted frequent flier miles… he plans on straight up Amtraking your ass…..am I making my point?

And last but definitely not least:

Verse 3:

[Roscoe;Verse 3:]
(Roscoe Dash, let’s go)
R-O-S-C-O-E-Mr. shawty put it on me
I be goin’ ham
Shawty upgrade from baloney
Them niggas tippin’ good
Girl but I can make it flood
Cuz I walk around
With pockets bigger that are than my bus
Rain, rain go away
That’s what all my haters say
My pockets stuck on overload
My reign never evaporates
No need to eleborate
Most of these ducks exaggerate
But, i’ma get money nigga
Everyday stuntin’ nigga
Ducks might get a chance after me
Bitch i’m ballin’
Like i’m comin’ off of free throws
Cuz the head of the game
No cheat codes
Lambo, Roscoe
No street code
And your booty got me lost like Nemo
Go, go, go
G-gon’ and do yo dance
And, i’ma throw this money
While you do it wit no hands
(GO!)

 

        My hoe has a first name its, Y-O-U-S-A; my hoe has a  last name, its B-I-T-C-H! lol. SO between ham and bologna, he only deals with basic bitches. No steak, no filet mignon, hell….not even turkey? This is a classy negro ladies… he will spend the best on his bitches! And I think that he happens to have a fetish with Ducks…..dont go to Disney World and leave him alone with Donald. Trust me…..the water metaphors are freaking me out. And he might not even really like women because he really only talked about himself through the whole verse. Was this to redeem himself for even being apart of this fucked up coonery in the first place? At least he spoke the best English in the song. COONSTATSTIC!

        I tried to find some praise in there… this is how I really feel about this song. Bounce if you must….but this is just HORRIBLE! Okay.. I’m done. Until I get some liquid courage in my system at a private house party and I begin to jam to this. What? I wanna do it with no hands…I’ve been practicing Yoga. lol

Double Negative Error Count

R&B: -6      Rap: -2

 

Sincerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~

 

The Art of Vulnerability

 

Have you ever told yourself that you would never like another person? You’ve loved for the very last time, and every time you make that vow you swear to stick to it. Well, I am sitting here on my couch rather confused by a vow that I made to myself years ago. This vow of guarding my heart because “no one else will” seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, and sometimes in moments of pain I choose to revert back to it. But how healthy can this be for me?

Let’s see, there’s an Art of War, an Art of Seduction, and but why is there not an Art of Vulnerability. Vulnerability, once seen as a weakness, the scariest places for billions of people around the world, and yet the very gateway to get to what it is that we need. I recently told myself that I would open myself up to love, to be vulnerable. Even my horoscope agrees. It said to me, a Sagittarius, that I would need to talk to a stranger because it could very well lead to something and to have fun. Sounded like good advice, at the time. But today, as mentioned before, here I sit on my couch confused. The cause of this confusion….a guy.  And I could conquer this confusion if I had the tools. I know that there is an art to Vulnerability that I have yet to master because these bitches wont write a self-help book to show me how.

I dont know what it feels like to be on this side of vulnerability. I know what it feels like to block advances, to tell a guy where to shove it because I dont hear the game that he is trying to spit in my ear, or wanting to hear from a person who has now made it on to your emotional radar. Especially the person that “appears” to want you on their radar too. I’ve read the books, and his signs are telling me that he IS just that into me. But my fears are telling me that he JUST may be playing me. But how is that being vulnerable? How is listening to my fears, borderline intuition, not a smart thing to do when exploring something new? I dont even think I am making sense as I write this…again, I’m confused.

I’m confused because a change in his pattern occurred, and for 24 hours not a word!!!!! Usually, I could care less, but he was supposed to meet me yesterday. And unless there was a murder, an arrest or a death, I have not received a text or a smoke signal to tell me to be calm and to not fly off the deep end with my imagination. THIS is where you go…girl, he’s no longer THAT in to you, right? Because if he wanted to talk with you… he would call. My original thought was to not call or text. Then my friend told me just to call one last time to make sure an accident didnt occur. So I did. Reluctant to do so because I am ALWAYS the one to figure out where people are. WHy me?

I could go on….but I am just going to sit here on the couch and continue thinking. What have I learned about being vulnerable? I have learned that even though the premise may have been a lie, I enjoyed what it felt like to be in the moment. AGain, I could be over acting and he could be dangling from the edge of a cliff in a car on fire…..I dont know. But I also know that I finally told people about a guy that I liked and I may have to take it back. I may have to take back all of the good things I’ve said and I dont like being embarrassed and open to people judging me. (Then why the hell am I writing this blog?) But I had to share this moment, in the thick of it. I wanted people to know that I was capable of being loved and here I am sitting not knowing where the other half of this equation is and I feel rather foolish. But…it is what it is. THIS is why I keep things to myself, I like suffering in solitude. *SCREAMS!* Okay… let me workout and use this energy differently. Thanks for reading, and NOT writing a comment below…. that ALWAYS makes me feel better about myself too.

Sincerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~

P90X Journey: Day 29

So, after a week of sickness I have to get back in the frame of mind that got me through an entire month of P90X in the first place.

Yesterday (Sunday, Day 28) I took some pics and compared them to my starting pics and my side view shows the most improvements. My stomach wasnt sticking out as far….or at least that is what I thought. I showed them to a few friends and I guess by their response they could tell that I had been working out. I still wont post the pics because I still look similar to them. Call it vanity, but I will probably post the pics once the program is over or I am far along in the program that I dont look like the bigger end of the scale…lol.

I mean, I am proud of the work that I have done and the body that is shaping, but the body is still shaping. What I am not proud of is the trail that got me to need to have before and after pics. SO yeh…. I will VOW to post all pics as soon as I reach 180lbs. Deal? Deal? I will do that because I will be closer to my goal weight. And I know that it will take more than the 90 Days of P90X to get to 180lbs, but I am okay with that. I have seen changes:

Day 1: 232lbs

Day 28: 224lbs

Day1: 43in waist

Day 28: 40in waist

Day 1: 47 in hips

Day 28: 45.5in hips

My Goal for the next 30 days is to REALISTICALLY get down to 214lbs. I honestly want to get down to 200lbs in these next 30 days, but I already know that Thanksgiving & my cruise fall dead smack in the middle of that fantasy ride. So, if I can loose another 8-10lbs I will be on the ball! I also want to stick closer to the diet than I did this first month. I also know that I still hate Yoga but I will do it the way that I am supposed to do it these next 30 days as well as Ab Ripper X. I also noticed that I need to stick with my pedometer too ( got a new one but I keep resetting it with my fat roll..lol). I also need to try to workout in the morning at LEAST 3x a week. I also want to go to the gym or outside and hit the treadmill for at least an hour for at LEAST 3x a week. I mean, I am still paying for a gym membership… I might as well use it. I also need to take the stairs at work EVERY DAY!!! No excuses, I need to take those stairs.  So, now that I have it in my head what I want to achieve this month, I really need to stick to it. I think that I can accomplish my realistic goal and possibly my idealistic goal if I stick to these minor changes.

I will keep a tab on each blog this month to see if I stick to it. It will look like this:

Drank a Pitcher of  Water?

Close to the Diet today?

Completed Yoga in 1 day?

Completed Ab Ripper X?

Pedometer Steps: x/10,000

Worked out this Morning? X/3wk

Treadmill or Walk/run: x/3wk

Took the stairs at work?

So starting today, yes… I took the stairs this morning when I came into work. And I am wearing my Pedometer but it is giving me trouble. But I will get this next month on and Poppin’! Okay… enough of my foreword. I am sleepy and wanting to go home and crash. I will probably take a nap and then workout. I have to get back into the swing of things after being off last week. I’m ready to move ahead and keep losing weight. 8lbs is 8lbs that I no longer have and I vow to never pick back up. Let’s go!

WORKOUT

Ummmm the workout? It didnt happen. I was so tired when I got home that I was in bed by 9:30. I just couldn’t do it, I need 8 hours of sleep when doing these workouts. I also realized that I always hate Mondays and never have enough energy…ever!!!! So, I decided that Mondays would be my rest day for the next 30 days. It made perfect sense to me.

I also went to the grocery store and bought food for the next week for me to cook. I only went over my budget by $1.07. I was actually proud of myself. I am going to do healthy burritos. I also thin that I had 5330 steps yesterday. I think I had more but this pedometer has sensitive reset buttons, so that is just a ball park estimate. Okay….to bed!

Sincerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~

P90X Journey: Days 20-28

I know, I know, I know what you may be thinking….where in the hell have I been with these fitness posts. Well… I have a great explanation.

Last Monday I got up and went to work, had a great cup of green tea w/ a hint of pomegranate when it all went south.  Our office building was freezing and I was sitting in my office with all of my outside outer wear still on. I was shaking and shivering and unfortunately, we cant have space heaters in our offices because it is a fire hazard. So I walked to Rite Aid hunched over in pain and bought a heating pad. I was light-headed, nauseous, and in a ton of pain. Nothing was working. I called a co-worker to come to me and we had to tell my supervisor that I was not feeling well. I was trying to google anemia and anything else I thought could make me feel like my blood sugar just quit on me. I had to sit at my desk for another 30 minutes before I could must enough strength to go and drive myself home. I slept for the remainder of the say but woke up around 3 am in tons of pain and a fever.

I drove myself to CVS at 3am to get some meds that I felt would cure everything that I was feeling. I went home and went right back to sleep. The next morning I went to the doctor who told me that I had a severe bladder infection that she has to monitor and make sure it doesnt turn into a kidney infection. She gave me some super powerful antibiotics but they made me feel horrible. You see, I had only had crackers and ginger ale for the past 24hrs when the doctor told me that I had to eat something before I could take the pills. The down side to that was the fact thta eating hurt because my bladder had swollen to two times its normal size and was pushing on every organ and tube inside of my stomach cavity. Eating made me feel worse and therefore I hated the meds. But I did what I had to do.

I was down for the count until Thursday. Sitting up put pressure on my stomach and so I laid down most of the time. I would eat breakfast because I had to take the meds but then it was crackers and ginger ale for the rest of the day and I was weak and light-headed every single time I stood up. SO intense P90X was not in my destiny for last week. Thankfully, it was my recovery week. I spent the ENTIRE week laid up in bed and eating as little as possible.

So there….. now you have been caught up. I feel better and will begin phase 2 of the workout this upcoming week.

Sincerely,

~*MY Mother’s Daughter*~

Colored Girl vs For Colored Girls:A Review-Part 2

                VS               

 

WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN TYLER PERRY’S MOVIE FOR COLORED GIRLS!!!!

 Please ready Review Part 1  FIRST before reading this. Click HERE. Thanks!

7 Nov 10

          This morning I woke up to pitch black darkness surrounding me in my bedroom as my conscience pulled me out of a nightmare, a nightmare where I envisioned my college friend who had been out drinking with all of us and I allowed one of our guy friends to drive her home. I mean, this was the south, stuff like that doesnt happen in the south, right? He was a friend of all of ours and had been for years so I didnt feel like there was anything to worry about. But fear struck my core when she told me that he fell asleep in her bed next to her, undressed.  Friend or no friend, fear can shake a girl that way. She was intoxicated and had nothing to go on but his word that nothing happened. But she would never be the same after that, and the thought of him being in the house while she was passed out shook me to my core and stalked me in my sleep years later. This was one of the realities that I took home with me after watching For Colored Girls. There were so many eye-opening moments, but that one hit home the best like, like…….. like an abusive boyfriend with fists of steel coming with the strength of hurricane Katrina. For Colored Girls had done something to me that was unexpected; it made me rethink what it meant to be a Colored Girl TODAY and not remain the colored girl of 1997 when I first picked up the book and rose to success without accepting or issuing any apologies. What kind of Colored girl was I today? And what kind of audience needed For Colored Girls: the movie?

          Walking into Potomac Yards’ Regal Theater at 4pm ,directly after work,  was like me rushing to see Deep Throat; no one was supposed to like it but it was the IT thing to do of the day. The crowd of women rocking one dominate color or another was a secret sign to those of us who had knowingly been Colored Girls for years, that we were here to stake claim to something that had been ours for decades, some longer than others, but ours just the same. I found myself sitting dead center in the upper rows next to a mature woman rocking a powder blue beret and matching sweater who was as poised as she wanted to be. And as I looked around the room I saw colors that weren’t apart of our Colored Girl sisterhood and I just assumed that they were the Neos begging to find out what our sisterhood was all about, but I didn’t have the courage to tell them that this may be a hazing of sorts rather than the traditional induction expected by Nationals. Besides, I would have sounded crazy to a woman who just wanted to come and see a movie, like my co-worker who didn’t even know it was a book or a play before she saw my book placed on my desk earlier that day. The 15 minutes of previews was not enough time for me to fill these women in, and so I sat back quietly with my Icee and held my judgment close as the lights went dim.

          As a person who has her Masters Degree in Theatre Arts, me watching a movie is like doing the job of the Continuous ( the person who gets paid to make sure that every time they do a retake the glass is filled to the same level and a purse is on the same shoulder…..notices all errors so the shot looks continuous) instead I am doing it for free. And even though there is no stage, I am still sitting against the fourth wall begging the movie to suspend my moment of disbelief, to pull me in. Immediately, as the movie began, the violinist sitting upon the piano, leg crossed, toes pointed inches away from the pianist’s face drew my disbelief’s attention clear into the room. Who does that in real life? I immediately was aware again that this was a movie and some of the creative effects were going to be there, rather than make this as real as possible, or at least that was my initial fear. Anika Noni Rose, supposedly assigned Lady in Yellow, but performing Lady in Brown’s poem, opens up with a beautiful dance that draws us all in, but this collage of voices that jack-up the opening make it hard to understand if the women are saying the same thing or different things, and all of it gets lost in the surround sound as jumbled mess before the last line if cursively scribbled across the screen. I think that it was a unneccesary dramatic effect, or improperly executed effect. Allowing each woman to speak was clean and would have been enough. But that wouldn’t be the last thing I had wrong with this movie.

          The introduction of characters was another area that jolted my senses. In the play, they were just colored girls retelling stories, some theirs and some of the people they knew, but you were never quiet sure. Half the time it felt like they were telling your story but changed the name to protect the not so innocent. SO as soon as Kerry Washington gives Kimberly Elise the name of Crystal, she no longer becomes a color to me. She becomes the woman in the poem with a face, with a figure, and a name. It takes away some of my emotion because I now have someone to judge, someone to stare at and say…honey, you don’t have to live in this situation, rather than wonder who tried to help her. And as much as I tried, Kerry’s interaction with Michael Ealy the first time was so unbelievable. Maybe there are guys who hit female strangers, but I would think that he would have taken the stereotypical stance that all abusive men took; subtly. He would have held in all that rage until after she left so that nothing would seem out of the ordinary. Because if he indeed hit her, she would have called the cops for hitting a city employee and not just left some damn voicemail. Then BAM! Phylicia began a portion of the Beau Willie poem, so was she Lady in Red? It felt like a great place to put it, but then it dawned on me….. THE POEMS WERE INCOMPLETE AND OUT OF ORDER!!!! This was no longer For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Was Enuf, this was like Passion of the Christ versus Jesus Christ, Super Star! Okay, Okay…. I get it now. He may have used the foundation of my Bible, but he remixed the order of the scripture…..it was okay. My own Bishop doesn’t read the Bible in the same order every Sunday, but I get the same message. I could relax….almost.

          In comes Loretta Divine, OBVIOUSLY the Lady in Green, but why in the HELL was she doing the Lady in Red’s “water it your damn self” poem? Confused. So, people weren’t keeping their own poems either? Okay, so this went from Passion of the Christ, to Jesus Christ Super Star to Mel Gibson yelling anti-Semitic phrases on a freeway. I couldn’t understand. Each Colored Girl had her own traits, why were they being mixed around? And for the life of me…..who in the hell casted Tessa Thompson? While doing the Lady in Yellow’s graduation poem in a purple leotard ( Thought I wouldn’t notice,huh?) she destroyed everything I am still paying student loans off of for was based on. She rambled through that piece just to hear herself speak. There were no revelations, no pauses,  no tone fluctuations to suggest a change in who she was, and it was too damn sing-songy.  I could hear Shakespeare clawing at the dirt in an attempt to get to her trailer to recite “Bitch, speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines“. And I don’t know that many girls who would tell how they lost their virginity to a class full of females. I just think that her execution could have been better. Just like I wondered why was Whoopi in the film? The ONE poem that she received was mumbled in with that of Thandie Newton’s and very inaudible. It was as if some theatrical effect went wrong and had a wardrobe malfunction in the middle of Super Bowl and no one was willing to apologize for it. That poem deserved its own light as well, they both did. They both were of equal importance. I spent half the time trying to hear Whoopi’s poem and drown out Thandi’s, who was supposed to be the Lady in Orange…signified by her double-sided taped orange robe. I felt as if I lost something there that I can’t get back. And the close up of Whoopi saying, “He said I was ugly” sucked all seriousness out of the theater as we all laughed at an aged Ceily and imagining Sug pointing her long, bony finger in her face, because this scene “Shol was ugly”. But maybe, and this could be a stretch, maybe Whoopi became the symbolic precense of all of us who know the play,have strayed from it and the minute your faults have been thrown in your face you run back to the old play and claim to hold it sacred. I say this from the rounds of critique’s I’ve seen on the internet. Are we the mothers of this movement dressed in all white wearing dirty draws full of our bullshit that we want no one else to see? So many women, self included, claim that the purpose of the play means so many things to them, but most importantly that they can change and rise above those things….only to refuse change the moment they heard this movie was coming out. Are we the theatrical cult mothers baptizing the new generation with honey and ash to convert them back to colored ballerinas in jazz shoes the moment that we see them engaging in the activities that For Colored Girls once saved us from all those years ago? Are we the ones wishing them well but leaving the theater abruptly because this new adaptation is ” the devil’s music“? Just a thought.

          With the whole Beau Willie poem, and Crystal…. I think that Kimberly Elise did a good job. I still couldn’t take my mind away from the Lynn Whitfied & Oprah scene in Brewster Place where Oprah tells her to breathe after the loss of her baby. I can’t remember if I cried during that scene. I teared up more with her scrubbing the blood off of the sidewalk. That graphic brought home that I was judging and made me think of someone very close to me and her two children and the men she has chosen to love. It brought fear in my heart, since I knew that no one but my personal Crystal could choose to help herself once she decided to take responsibility for her part in such an abusive situation. I couldn’t save her. And that stung.

        The men…..outside of me visualizing Maino (Khalil Kain, who has gained some weight) raping Anika….the other guys really just floated to the back of my memory. That rape scene was the most graphic I think I’ve seen Tyler get since Medea Goes to Jail with the guy on top of Keisha Knight Pulliam. The clock was dramatic, but I caught myself laughing at the fact that at least he was a 2 minute brother. I had to detach for my own mental safety.  If anything I wanted to blame the guy and not Anika for letting a guy into her house on the second date. Those damn guys!!!! They were there….but they weren’t there. It was never about them. I still question their having been there in the first place. Loretta Divine’s speech to the door was powerful because no man was there. I think that the men could have very well been abstractly there. I think that would have been more powerful than me hurting my eyes trying to squint to see a private part or two of the hot ass guy butt naked behind some beads in Thandi’s house. But…it is what it is.

          I finally figured out why Janet was dressed in Red….she was supposedly the Lady in Red, all be it imposing that she delivered the Lady in Blue’s speech. Sorry Kerry…she stole your poem. Also, the big reveal of her marital situation…. I WISH I WOULD sit on a bed all calm delivering some kind of poem to the back of my Down Low husband’s head after receiving the news that I received. THAT SHIT WAS SO UNPLAUSIBLE!!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS!!! She should have reached back into her acting bag from Why Did I Get Married, Too and imagined that he was coming in her house trying to take her stuff again. THIS is where she should have lost her damn mind!!! And then she went to a damn party!!!! Oh, somebody was smoking crack when this part of the script came to be. Sorry, Janet baby…I don’t blame you because you were allowed to do it….but it didn’t fly with me. You behaving like Cruella Deville was a nice surprise, but not much else. Okay, I take that back, your change around and revelation was nice as well. But the message that was sent with her being all calm was such the wrong message to send to colored girls. We didn’t see her break down over her health, but we saw her break down over her assistant’s children? We didn’t see her break her composure over the discovery of his lies, over the uncertainty of what was ahead? There should have been something a little more believable here…..but it was that “ONE YEAR LATER” jump that we were suppose to guess what happened. Tyler should stick to a 48hr window period of  believability because things get left out.

          I personally think that with 9 women being housed in a 7 woman script there were some things that were going to get left out. I think that Kerry’s character could have been combined with that of Whoopi’s and Phylicia’s. She could have still been the social worker who was a hypocrite and preying on everyone else’s business. And she could have still been Nyla (Tessa) and Thandi’s (Thandi) ….am I the only one who noticed that Thandi kept her own name in the movie, or was it Tangi?……mother. I think that Loretta should have been Lady in Red and Janet Lady in Green…for the most part. But with the mixture of parts, its hard to tell who should have been what. I just think that the backdrop for these women were not quiet right for this play. Maybe it should have been a Girlfriend’s kind of setting where Joan comes in and tells about the people she works with, or a few of Maya’s “Oh Hell Nawls”, and Lynn’s inability to see the world as it is to make us all wonder just where in the hell did Toni go. It would have made us, or at least me, believe half of the movie. I would have been able to believe that there were people out there who stuff like this happened to with it being told over cocktails in an upscale bar. Hell….they could have even turned it into a play about poets living out their lives on stage in poems, and that would have helped with the cadence of some of the poetical lines that most people would never say in regular conversation or description. But this is all…..should’ve, could’ve, would’ves.

          After getting over the whole Women of Brewster’s Place vibe, I did walk away with two or three bells of personal wisdom; Anika Noni Rose & Phylicia Rashad. Anika Noni Rose should definitely get an award, a certificate, or a cover for her scene in the hospital. I cried. I sat there and internalized every thing she said because the scene was done beautifully. Having been assaulted by a member of my own family, I understood and I agreed. It made me take notice of the numerous times I dated a guy and he kept trying to have sex with me when the answer “No” never wavered. It made me wonder if we weren’t surrounded by other people, or if I hadnt driven myself home…what would have happened. Or I think back to the times of having my hands pinned down after I try to push him off of me and his refusing to stop. Do you press charges when someone refuses to stop, no matter how far you initially intended to go? Are you not allowed to change your mind when you no longer feel comfortable? After he is already in your house? I already dont let many people, male or female, into my house…but who am I really allowing into my space. And just because I gave him a kiss, was seen in public with him, or hugged him….does that send him a signal that more could be in store? I was frightened. It was a good frightening, it was a frightening of awareness. That was an awareness that I never took home with the play.  Just like, I heard Phylicia speaking to Thandi…..I have some things that I need to “pluck out at the root”. And I was Thandi sitting on the table facing her baby sister trying to explain to her that I didn’t hate her and never had. No one had ever taught me how to love myself so I didn’t know how to love her. It was as if it was me saying ” being a colored girl is a metaphysical dilemma that I aint got quite good at yet” into the eyes of a sister who wasnt willing to see me try. I was Thandi accepting her reason for needing $300 and going to pay it to find out that it was all a lie. I’m not perfect, and I can’t go back, but I will not stand around and take the blame for the actions of a person I don’t know any more. I just dont know how to get my life to play out as beautifully as their scene. But I’ll keep praying. It was these amazing women who spoke to me the most. But I was still Thandi’s character, running from being touched through continuous touching. I was Tessa’s character, having been pregnant and having had an abortion at the age of 20. I was Phylicia, being in everyone’s business wanting to help solve their problems and my help not being welcomed. I was Janet, being a powerhouse and people not respecting that,and sometimes abusing that power. I was Kerry, wondering would I ever be able to have a child with a man who I loved and who loved me back after a guy who had seemingly destroyed my world. I was Kimberly, staying in situations that would never benefit me but never having the strength to leave. I was Whoopi, tugging between hypocrisy and the hypocrite. And I was Loretta, not knowing that I could love myself more than any man could make me believe that he could.  I walked out of that theater feeling like I was still a Colored Girl. This movie didn’t confirm it, I knew it all along, and I was okay with letting another generation find their way back to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. This movie wasnt taking anything from me…it was to remind me what I had, and I had it….but I expressed it through pre-judgment and an unwillingness to accept change. Indirectly, through all of its mistakes, this film, too, was a Colored Girl that needed to find its way…and it doesn’t need to apologize for its mistakes. It just needs to exist and touch those who can be touched by it. But just for dramatic effects it should scream to the mountain of complainers on critic sites and twitter, “Shut up bitch, I said I was sorry” just to prove a point that it wasnt trying to live up to their high ass expectations in the first place. Nothing can ever be an original, but the original. And this was no Ntozake Shange, but it was a Tyler Perry. Like it or not….it exists. And I took something away from it.

          And as I pulled into my house and plugged in my dead cell phone, it began to buzz like a pack of bees at a honeycomb. I check my text messages…and low and behold there is a text from the guy I cut it off with last week. His text read:

MRH: Afternoon! I know I haven’t talk with you n a couple of days, but I was down south. I would like to see you tonight an hold an talkk to you if not I got ya

I swear my life matches up better than most. His improper grammar taunted me and my intellectual capacity to understand how he just refused to put a “d” on the end of “an” when needed. I stared at the implied “Bitch, you’re stupid” tattooed to the tail end of his reason for not calling, as if the South has yet to discover phones. Here I was trying to figure out if I as the Lady in Green or the Lady in Red, and then I thought “What the hell” I became greedy and became both. You see, “ever since I realized there was someone called a colored girl, an evil woman, a bitch or a nag….. I’ve been trying not to be that” but moments like this just push my buttons and test my commitments to myself. But I was a Colored Girl….and I was better than anything he could ever do to me. And so I replied:

LMAO!

I just got back in the house and about to head back out. I really don’t see us EVER hanging out again. Just from the lack of respect you showed me BEFORE you went down south. But I wish you the best & early congrats on graduation. May God cover you in his favor. Goodbye!

          There it was….. mission accomplished and Colored Girl approved. I could hear the women high-fiving me in my spirit. I think that I have come full circle. “I had found God in myself and I loved her fiercly!” Whether it was the film or my history with the play….I was a Colored Girl Who Once Considered Suicide When My Purpose Became Too Much…..and I am sitting here rethinking that choice….because my Purpose IS Enough! *bundles up in my purple and green sheets and comforter & hits Save.”

Sincerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~

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Colored Girl vs For Colored Girls:A Review, Part 1

                              VS.                     

5 Nov 10, Noon EST

         For Colored Girls and I go back like hot combs on stoves, with everyone in the kitchen disguised as the family’s beauty parlor. Before I knew that “being black” meant that I was the Lady in Brown , by default, eternally. Before when pink use to be my favorite color, got sick of it and traded up to Purple because I discovered that I was a child of the royal Most High. Before when everyone called me Lady or Auntie Purple, while my house quietly went from Barney’s condo to Eve’s atonement for defiance just because I felt that way. Before I realized that red and blue make Purple and I may very well just be all three or the fact that those two make a whole me. You see, I am a Colored Girl. I’ve always been a colored girl. Long before I graced a stage senior year in High School to perform Lady in Blue’s signature “Sorry” piece…..I was just another Colored Girl who refused to be JUST another Colored Girl.  I was the Lady in Red attaching notes to potted plants after realizing that I couldnt truly use sex as a toy like the boys but did so anyway still longing to be touched by him, by…..somebody with a pulse. Or I was the Lady in Yellow who was the ONLY virgin amongst my friends at graduation who had to pretend like I was working with something…all the while not knowing what that something was. And definately before green became my second favorite color because I liked the way it looked next to purple, the contrast was to insure that nobody ” could almost walk off with all of my stuff“; I’d had that happened one time too many and wasnt letting it happen again. Just like I dont know if I want to let this movie happen. Well, I didnt at first, but now I dont know. Lets just say, to say that I am afraid to watch this film, yet ecstatic at its existence….is a bit like me saying that I am kinda pregnant, its true but doesnt make much sense in the scheme of things.

        Ntozake Shange is staring at me from the back cover of the book that I have had since 1998 when I purchased it from Borders. My co-workers, this morning, all mentioned how well-kept and new the book looks. I told them all that I have to take care of my books just in case I wanted to return the book to the store. But I didn’t have the strength to tell them, both African-American women, that I didn’t want to taint the image of the beautiful woman on the cover who I wished I had the courage to look like. I want to be able to rock my headwraps to work in my office without problems, or being deemed unprofessional. I want to be a Colored Girl at all times and not only when it is deemed appropriate. And with all that said…..I still can’t bring myself to bend back the cover while reading….or tell them that the real reason was because…….I don’t want to force the Colored Girl on the cover to bend over backwards for me.

        The backdrop behind her tearful face, the woman on the cover, seems to be that of a bathroom tile. How ironic that ever since I can remember the bathroom has been my safe haven. I feel safe in there and private in there, and sometimes still til this day I go and sit and cry in there. “Dark phrases of womanhood of never having been a girl”….It is almost a temple that people are just expected to leave you alone. The bathroom was the one place where I was left undisturbed, un-molested, un-attacked, and able to be at peace with myself. And as I ponder about who could this image have been modeled after, this amazing woman…..I wonder why God chose for the tile to be such a presence. And I, for the life of me…cant fight the feeling that I have…this urge to want to shout that I look like the woman on the old cover….I dont look like Janet. Taking nothing away from her beauty… but honey, Janet doesnt even look like Janet. So how can I cling to this rapid pace of change that has been forced upon me? DO I have to? How can I go back and erase the years drawn around this image, this source of inspiration that helped me through my adoloescent years?

        This work of art spoke to me when my high school theatre teacher introduced the book to me so that I may memorize some pieces for a monologue. I was entering into the Walter Trumbauer Festival in 1998. I did the festival every year and my senior year in high school would be no different. But wow, how was a young 17-year-old girl supposed to choose from so many wonderful monologues? For weeks I memorized poem, after poem, after poem because I had rationalized that they were all me and I could capitalize by entering the Monologue, Poetry Interpretation, and Silent Partner competition.  But who would have known that I would have broken up with my high school sweetheart just weeks before the competition? It must have been an act of GOD! Because the last thing that he said to me before walking away was “sorry”.

        You guessed it! I became the Lady in Blue. I memorized and worked on this piece and saw his face for days on end until I sometimes forgot that other people were in the class when I rehearsed. This was written just for me. It became my therapy, my way of speaking without having to tell my own business….I got to hide behind the performance in plain sight. It was beautiful. I won 3 FIRST place trophies that year, and they still are out in my house today some 12 years later. I also got the opportunity to perform the “Sorry” piece in front of the entire school in an assembly to showcase those of us who won at the festival. I found my ex in the crowd sitting next to his sloppy ass new girlfriend ( I NEVER liked that trick) and I performed it directly to him. It was my apology for thinking that he was someone worth my time. I was finally sorry; sorry for having wasted my time. (And for those who have read my Advice from the Other Woman blog here on this site….you know that I wasnt done…yet). It was so dramatic. He sat directly under one of the overhead lights in the theatre and I could point him out in the crowd. My performance would be the talk of the school for weeks because everyone knew that I was talking about his ass! But this year when I finally got tired of his sorries…. I walked away for good, forever…because “I couldnt stand being sorry and colored at the same time”. I had come full circle. I had finally received what I sought for this piece to deliver me from all those years ago. I had found the answer before I could ever understand the problem. It had been confirmed, this play was for ME!!!

        So, who is this movie for? Is it for colored girls who have baptized this play and deemed it their Bible when Zane novels aren’t enuf? Or for colored girls who pray that he (Tyler Perry) doesn’t fuck up our Holy Grail when Why Did I Get Married Too? and Medea’s Great Big Family were enuf? I am afraid to find out. Just from the commercial, the first time I saw it I was captivated and amazed that all of these amazing women were going to be in MY play!!! Who was going to play me? Who was going to tell my story. And then I saw it, the snippet of Janet doing the intro to “Sorry”. BUT WHY WAS SHE IN A RED DRESS?!  That is the Lady in Blue’s SIGNATURE piece… I can’t get past that. I can’t fathom how you could be so careless and I immediately began to get enraged. I was no longer a Colored girl but a Color-ed girl feeling as if this commercial has just thrown bleach on my favorite blue Prada dress! WHERE WAS MY BLUE!!!? I was already upset. I literally ran to my bookshelf and hugged the book and began to cry. Yes, I sound psycho…but you don’t understand…..this is my LIFE that Tyler is playing with. Who were these men in an all woman’s play? Would I feel as if too much had been done to such a sacred script?  Or should I be glad that at least all of these black women were employed? No matter what, I couldn’t shake the feeling that a street graffiti artist had come along and added a few of his homeboys to Da Vinci’s Last Supper and they were depicted stealing food from Mary’s, I mean Peter’s, plate. Or was I taking it too far?

Did I not have the right to prejudge? Was I not justified in thinking that the absence of real men in the play made me internalize what was being depicted on stage, force me to visualize myself in one of those colors? Or was I wrong for not giving it a chance? Or was I upset that another sacred piece of black art was being brought mainstream, mainstream….and possibly amongst “mixed company”? I felt the same way about Good Hair.  But this was Lauryn Hill killing me softly but showing up 3 hours late to do it kind of confusion.

        So, today, I brought the book with me to work. After reviewing it this week from cover to cover and having purchased my tickets Monday in advance…thanks Fandango!….I think I am ready to see the movie. I dont know what to expect. But I think I am ready to have an opinion. So, Dressed in all black , brown skin with a touch of Red….my colors of choice today…..I have 4 hours left……..I’ll tell you what I think. And If I’m wrong….. I’ll apologize

~*Check out Part 2 for My Critique*~

Sincerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~