H.R.H.

What if I started a new monarchy? What if I could get people who are interested in a cultural experiment that explores what a modern day monarchy would feel like to meet up and hang out?

IN AWE of OBAMA's INAUGURATION

I've just arrived home from the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States of America.  I spent a few days in our capital, Washington D.C., going to parties and talking to people about this important moment in history. Now that I'm home, I feel very different about the various events that I was fortunate enough to have been able to be a participant. While riding home on the bus, I overheard a young American student say to another passenger, "...It's like America is cool again...". That sentiment, scares me a bit. After analyzing this new precedent from the angles of race, class, civil rights, immigration, age, etc., I wonder if political pundits, cultural theorists, and other academics will ponder the question of why now, and how do people, white and black, American and foreign, really see this moment, experience it and re-tell it?  Are we Americans just getting a "cooler" president, or are we getting this  "new era" that I'm already hearing about on the news? Why can we ask a black president to do things and create changes in a way that we've never demanded from other leaders?

Vendors on the street yell at me "HOPE, 5 dolllars!". I shudder. Blacks and whites over 40 introduced themselves to one another and began civil conversations in public. I smile. Barack gives a speech that nearly moves me to tears. I beam. I read that her considers his white speech writer "his mind-reader". I cringe. There is something here that has me puzzled. I know that I have issues with race. I grew up in a small town in the south, there is no question about how my family's experience of sharing social spaces white people has been. So why can't I just accept that America is finally embracing a person of color for who they are, and not what they imagine them to be?

I have every confidence that Barack's presidency will outperform anyone alive has seen come before it, I just whether or not we're witnessing the seeds of our hopes being sown or the fruits of our labor being harvested.

fabric on a window

I had some scraps of fabric that I was saving to make pillows laying around during the holidays, after I put up a new curtain, I found that it was too sheer and needed some help, so I tied these scraps together to look like drapes and such. Yes, it looks a hot mess, but I think the way that its done is interesting and has a toga kind of feel to it. I'll take it down when I get sick of it.

Another Brandy Tragedy

I have to go ahead and get this off of my chest once and for all. Brandy  has gotten a raw deal. There, I said it. And not just by the entertainment industry, and music fans everywere, but by her own management. In the past year, I have downloaded about 12 or 13 unrealeased Brandy tracks that never made it onto any of her albums that were AMAZING. Some of the best R&B I've ever heard period. Don't believe me, just listen to SWEET NOTHINGS , FOLLOW ME, AFTER THE FLOOD, ESCAPE, FEEL SO GOOD, LIST, etc. 

I know AMAZING. Now, here's the thing, anyone who knows anything about music can tell you what she's done for her genre and how the quality of her work and her instrument have only improved over time. Period. So why is most of her best work not being included on her albums. I'm confused. Who has it in for her? This las song I'm going to post was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I need answers after this. I emplore the interweb to respond to me, and tell me why this is happening. I think we all deserve the honest answer to this artistic tragedy. Now, I'm going shut up and let Brandy talk. Listen to the emotion and skill that puts into yet anothe unreleased, superlative piece simply entitled, FREEDOM.

 

I saw the train comin' for me with the force of a million marching
I felt the eyes of so many, the whispers and shouts about my belief in us
I see the cloaks on the judges, flaws in the judgement, beast in the dungeon that dont scare me
And I'll say it on a mountain, say it all in public, hold a press conference to speak about my freedom

Just us - lookin' upon a city of towers soaring
Just us - standing our ground in a crowd of lions roaring
Just us - I won't be held, I won't back down no more
Just us - Freedom
Just us - Freedom

I flew away this morning, what if I ran away and never came back
And all of the fame means nothing, it's all a game and the gladiator just won't win
And I see cloaks on the judges, flaws in the judgement, beasts in the dungeon, don't look scared to me
And I'll say it on a mountain, say it all in public, hold my head high, I'ma speak about my freedom

Just us - lookin' upon a city of towers soaring
Just us - standing our ground in a crowd of lions roaring
Just us - I won't be held, I won't back down no more
Just us - Freedom
Just us - Freedom

Free to run on the water
Free to believe, free to love
Free to speak their mountain off the ground(?)
I believe in us

Just us - lookin' upon a city of towers soaring
Just us - standing our ground in a crowd of lions roaring
Just us - I won't be held, I won't back down no more
Just us - Freedom
Just us - Freedom

My Freedom
My Freedom
My Freedom
Freedom, Freedom

Holiday Hope

So, '09 is finally here, and all of the promises I made to myself in '08 are either coming back to haunt me or coming to fruition. My multi-pronged consulting agency and design studio, my trip to a foreign land, my improved budgeting skills, my relationship acumen, my this that and the other... What will become of these idioms, these internal insinuationans and assertions? Well, I can't say much about what will happen, that's one thing is certain. However, I can describe the events that have already occured that give me permission to hope for more good to befall me in the near future.

This Christmas, my immediate family came to visit me here at my apt. here in Brooklyn. Not only did they come to visit, they stayed for much of the holiday season. I was ecstatic. My mother and two younger brothers put everything else aside and sacrificed their plans to come to New York, one of them, for the first time. Their visit was a Christmas gift to me that can only be called a blatant act of goodwill. Ever since my brother brought to my attention the strain that distance and lack of communication was playing on my familial relations, I've been determined to interact with them all with much more vigor and sincerity, no matter what the consequences. We all know that certain things about family can be unpleasant, but the benefits of staying close, truly close to your family always outweighs the cost. I'm very grateful to them for putting themselves through difficult and expensive traveling during a recession to help repair old bonds and foster new ones. 

Thanks