BELIEVE!

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

This is one of my favorite Bible verses, and I'll admit I didn't wake up this morning with too much faith - in the Chiefs.

In order to make the playoffs, Kansas City needed Cinnicinati (at home), Tennessee (home) and Denver (home) to lose AND to beat Jacksonville (in KC). Improbable. Unlikely, right?
Well, it all happened!

Tennessee got hammered by New England. Cinnicinnati lost in overtime to Pittsburgh on a long touchdown by Santonio Holmes. And the most improbable of all things was savored for last. San Francisco upset Denver in overtime 26-23 on a field goal by Joe Nedney (New Year's will be Joe Nedney Day in Kansas City).

Oh yeah, the Chiefs beat the Jags 35-30, and guess what?

"We're going to the ship! We're going to the ship! (What!) We're going to the ship!"

Not quite, but there is hope now. We're in the tournament, and I have faith.

We play Indy in the first round, and they can't stop the run, the thing the Chiefs do best. Guess what time it is Peyton? It's time to "Dig a Hole," and bury yourself for this season because LJ, the Roc and the Chiefs are coming for you.

As Derrick Thomas once said during the playoffs: BELIEVE!

That's all for now. That's all we have to do.

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This Song's Dedicated ...

No one wants to have the scraggily look around the fam on Christmas or near New Year's. So a few days before Christmas, I headed to the barbershop.

My cousin had a gang of customers waiting to get a cut.

As usual, the conversation in the shop was all over the place. We talked about the Chiefs (and why they suck), the Royals (and why they suck), TO, the NBA, BET's American Gangster series and how the CIA and Reagan were responsible for bringing coke into the black neighborhoods of America, the fact that Janet Jackson is still fine at 40, whether or not we'd believe it if anybody said they slept with Janet Jackson among other things.

As you could imagine, there wasn't much quiet time. That was until ...

You know how a song will start to play on the radio, and nobody knows what it is from the first chord expect for you, and you get giddy?

Well, this first chord was the perfect chord for a barbershop full of men talking about manly stuff. I got giddy because I was anxious to see how the room reacted to the song.

The first verse kicked in. It got quiet as people figured it out. Hair stopped being cut, and people started singing:

"This song's dedicated/ to my homies in that gangsta lean,/ why did you have to go so soon./ It seems like yesterday/ we were hanging round the hood./Now I'm gonna,/ keep your memory alive,/ like I homie should./ A life time of memories,/ going down the drain./ I have to keep stepping,/ cause i can't get past the pain./ I tipped my 40 to his memory ..."

Some cats actually pretended to tip the 40. I'd never seen a barbershop so quiet. Never.

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My Christmas Ode to Riley Freeman

Santa missed the memo
Skipped right over the ghetto
Saw him in the ‘burbs at the mall
Snapping pics with rich kids and dogs
Dude, you violated the Clause
I didn't even get no new draws.
Trust me Claus, before you go
“You gon’ pay what you owe.”
And oh, before I pull this trigga
“Dear Santa you still a bitch ass ….”

And see, changing the word trigga doesn't change the meaning. You still know what it is. lol. Anyways Merry Christmas! Holla at cha boi!

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You Are The Prototype

The first time I truly gazed upon her beauty, she lay dead on a coroner's table. Even Denzel couldn't help but announce her radiance.

Yes, I have a new found celebrity crush. They don't come all that often for me. The first one was Maia Campbell (may her mother rest in peace) from one of my favorite dumb movies, Trippin and the LL Cool J show All in the House.

Nia "you're the blues between my left thigh, and the funk between my right" Long came next. Jill Marie Jones, the superdiva formerly of the sitcom Girlfriends, came along after a lengthy reign by Nia.

Now, there's a new one. Paula Patton.

It all came to be last night. I caught my first glimpse of Robin Thicke's "Lost Without You" video. I've heard the song a million times, and hummed the chorus, but had not seen the video.

Then last night, in the video, there she was as pretty as the sunrise on Miami Beach. I was hooked, and the research began today.

Of course, she just starred opposite Denzel Washington in Deja Vu. I saw Idlewild for the first time last week, and there she was playing the prototype for Andre 3000 Benjamin (and awkwardly enough, she found herself dead on a mortician's table). She even had a cameo in Hitch, where she got ran by Will Smith, that I remember.

A nice little bio for a short period of time.

Then I got to the part that stung a little bit - she's married to Thicke (and yes his pops is Alan Thicke from Growing Pains).

All I can say is, if he wrote the song "Lost Without You" while they were on a hiatus, I can feel him. If I had her, and lost her, I'd be lost to. Hell, I'm lost and I ain't even got her. lol.

Anyway, she kinda looks like Alicia Keys. On another note, I noticed that James Blake, the tennis player, looks a lot like Boris Kodjoe. Just a random thought.

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From Cute to Fine in 60 Seconds

Best Buy's lines are, well, ridiculous. Even if it weren't Christmas time.

So my quest for this Brian McKnight compact disc, yes I still haven't purchased it yet, continued today at Target after I refused to wait in a Best Buy line the length of the Nile River.

I searched under McKnight, and what did I find? Gemini. Already got it, so I went to an attendant in the electronics section and asked him for help. Did he help? Answer that yourself.

I did however pick up toilet paper, pledge and some carpet sprinkles. When I got to the check out line, I was greeted by a cute, but underage looking, young black Target worker.

"Are you ready to check out," she asked me?

"Yeah."

"I'll take you on three."

"Thank you," I said liking that I received a bit of personal attention and good customer service.

"So did you find everything alright," she queried?

An easy small talk question for a clerk, but I, at this point, was slightly disgruntled because i couldn't find the album I was looking for without waiting for 30 minutes to buy it.

"Actually, I didn't," I replied. "I couldn't find a CD I wanted."

"Was it the Bow Wow CD?" she asked.

Pause for sec. Was she serious? I mean, I know I totally looked like a scrub at the moment with my sweats on, "but why would I (dare) buy a Bow Wow CD?"

"It could be a gift for someone," she said. "It is the season for giving."

I wouldn't give a 14-year old cousin a Bow Wow album for her birthday. I'd buy her some Luke before I bought Bow Wow (that's a joke).

"You're right I guess, but that wouldn't happen."

"I suppose that's for young females anyway."

"How old are you?" I asked knowing full well that it's impolite, but not really caring because I was curious at this point.

"21, but I know I look younger it runs in the family," she replied.

My first thought: Damn. She completely threw me off and I had to throw some sympathy her way when I really wanted to ask her if she'd bought the Bow Wow CD, but what 21-year old really listen to "Lil" Bow Wow?

"I know the feeling, but let's put it this way, when you're pushing 60 you'll probably look like you're 45. That's not a bad thing."

My second thought (after we'd said our "Happy Holidays" and goodbyes): Damn, she's went from cute to fine just by telling me she was of age. She really was/is fine.

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Why I Shouldn't Drink

I don't have the best memory. To prove this, one of my best memories is how my younger brother once had to direct a youth tennis instructor (no I can't play) to my father's house when I was about six because I couldn't recollect how to get there. My brother was four.

I digress.

An old college friend, probably my biggest college crush that I did nothing with at all besides just hang tough with, found me on Myspace yesterday. It's one of the few things Myspace is actually good for these days.

We went back and forth about life, and how ours had progressed. Me: no kids, no wife and living in Kansas City, my home since birth. Her: no kids, no husband, and living in the Philippines, half the world away from where she was born, after spending a few years in LA.

It didn't shock me much that she found her way to a place no one would suspect her to be because this girl, now woman, was once as random and unpredictable as a college student could possibly be, and that's pretty random.

Now, what did surprise me was her memory. We traded words over four or five e-mails, and then she went off-kilter and just flipped whatever the subject was. Apparently Musiq Soulchild's "Settle for My Love" started to play on the radio where she was and she said this to me:

oh man... music soulchild just came on... "settle for my love." music is CRAZY like that. the first time i heard this shit i was in your room as well!!! good times man. Aww. memories.

Who remembers things like this? I have faint memories for the most part. Not "I remember this specific song we were listening to when we were in this exact spot in your room" type stuff.

It kind of threw me off guard and flattered me slightly as well. I mean, that did happen about six years and about 60 pints of Bacardi ago. I guess it could be the alcohol or maybe even bad genes. Well, at least I'm not bald like my brother. Remember, he's two years younger than I am.
......
P.S. JLBD has a message for you readers: I have something you can blog about. That bullish with the Miss USA scandal and how Donald Trump gave her a second chance. We all know that if she had a tan, she would never have gotten a second chance.

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NO. 2: The Failing Public School System

Ed's Note:Back to the problems of Black America.

Desegregation of the public schools was thought to be a positive thing. Black kids would be afforded the same opportunities as their white counterparts. All would be well.

Nope.

With whites sprawling to the suburbs during much of the last quarter of the 20th Century, schools are nearly as segregated as they were in 1960, about when my parents started school. Worse than that, there's little money in the inner-city public school system, and maybe even less hope.

Every year inner-city schools are dissolving their arts and sports programs just to create an operating budget that doesn't leave them in the red a year's end.

No Child Left Behind has left plenty of children behind simply because the system isn't fair. (Without me going to far into it, you should be able to read between the lines and see that inner-city and black are damn near interchangeable.)

The Solution: I believe the funding for public schools shouldn't be broken down by counties. I think all of the money - locally and at a state level - dedicated in a state to the K-12 public school system should be spread equally. In some ways it sounds illogical, but if you see how inferior inner-city schools are in comparison with their suburban counterparts you too would think that some of the suburban money should be spent in the heart of the city.

Or maybe mayors, councilmen and councilmen need attempt to increase taxes (the random ones like the hotel and car rental taxes that hit up out of towners) within the cities specifically for the local schools. They find the money to build new stadiums, they should do the same for the real future of their cities, the people.

Money talks, and if there was a sincere (monetary) effort put into the inner-city public school systems, there might be some effective change. Instead our local governments tax us more and more year in and out for what? To build new professional sports arenas and complexes for billionaires to make more money. There are new sports arenas and stadiums in the vicinity of every major city in America replacing older (but still functioning) counterparts, and the city schools? Yeah. Right.

There something gravely wrong with this picture. Don't you think?

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Still on Hiatus

If you haven't figured out by now, apathy bka "CP time" is a major problem in the black community, too. It just didn't make my top 5.

I don't buy compact discs anymore. Well, rarely. I have to really want to support the artist to buy their cd. Normally, I just download the album I want from a site where I pay for it, but cheap - and legally.

But when it's an artist I want to really support I actually go to Best Buy, and swipe it. Example: John Legend. Example No. 2: Jay-Z. Example of something I would download: Justin Timberlake's latest album. Catch my drift?

So where am I going with all of this? Well, I've purchased every Brian McKnight album since, well Brian McKnight, the self-titled first album. Great songwriter, brilliant musician and - most importantly - apart of my favorite genre of music, R&B/Soul/Neosoul.

Also on his resume/rapsheet: womanizer, cheater and I think someone told me he beat his wife. That all came after I bought Gemini the day it came out. Well, I thought to show my displeasure with these shortcomings, I'd boycott the album and not buy it for a week.

Today marked the end of that week. Thus, I took the two-minute drive to Best Buy from my apartment and scoured the aisles for Ten, McKnight's newest album. To my chagrin, it boycotted me.

The store sold out of it earlier in the day, and all I could think is "are you serious? A Best Buy in a suburban neighborhood is sold out of Brian McKnight's new album."

I thought the fact that I couldn't find it was a joke, so I asked an attendant. No joke. They'll have more next week, and I am lazy/will not overpay for any album. Thus, I refuse to go to FYE or Walmart or Target or Circuit City. There's a reason they call it Best Buy.

Maybe I'll just downloaded it later anyway, I never actually listen to the CD anymore. I always just rip it to my I-Pod.

I digress.

I got home, and found out the world is coming to an end. How do I know this? There were four different episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on four different stations and Barack Obama, who could likely be this country's next and first black president, was giving triumphant speech on C-Span all at the same time.

Enough of my ramblings.

Actually not. Do you really know what CP time really stands for? For the longest time I thought it was colored people time. But I don't think that's it. I believe it's "cotton picking" time. Are there any other's that fit?

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A Quick Break ...

Before I proceed with my top 5 problems concerning Black America, and their solutions, I'm taking a quick break to talk about an interesting finding this weekend.

I made this is movie weekend. I rented Waist Deep. The only thing that attracted me to this film was the idea of a man being separated from his son, and how he got him back. It turned out to be just as I expected, a waste of my money.

I also took a trip to the local AMC to see Blood Diamond. Interestingly enough, the two plots, Blood Diamond and Waist Deep, were similar. They each had the same plot: a black man in pursuit of a diamond(s) in order to retrieve his son, black men vying for territory in each film and underage blacks using guns (in Blood Diamond, they were a little too younger).

I just found it to be a weird coincidence. Two movies about completely different things, end up being the same story. And no, Leonardo DiCaprio didn't help Blood Diamond find any depth. It still didn't live up to its hype, and he better not win an Academy Award for this.

On another note, I also took in Mel Gibson's Apocolypto, and I must say it was a great movie with a simplistic message: driving out fear is the way to success. I didn't know what to expect, and it pleasantly surprised me and taught me something new with the story about the Myan Society. It did have its share of unnecessary gore, but this is a Mel Gibson production (see the Passion).

But back to Blood Diamond. The number of kids, and I mean kids, slaughtering their own countrymen in Blood Diamond was quite alarming. I didn't know that over 200,000 African boys are armed gunmen in wars. Scary.

Anyways, tomorrow I'll continue the countdown. We're at No. 2, the Failing Public School System. And I have my share to say about that. And yes, I know this was random.

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NO. 3: The Missing Black Family

Ed's Note: We're taking a look at what I consider to be the five biggest problems facing black America today in an effort to no be reactive. Nos. 3 thru will appear over the next few days.

One of my cousins sent out an e-mail request after Thanksgiving. He wanted to be sure that we had a massive family gathering for Christmas dinner. Seems that things haven't quite been the same since family members in my grandparents generation started passing away.

Holiday dinner, one with at least 30 relatives running in and out of one house, used to be a family staple. In some ways, it's now a bygone memory.

But that's just a small piece of it. So is the Black Family. I'll give BET this, last night it aired American Gangster: The Story of Ricky Ross, and it was a necessary tool in understanding the demise of the black family. It may not be fully responsible, but crack cocaine, which the documentary said was brought to America in droves by men doing work for the CIA in a roundabout way, played a decisive role.

Want to understand more about that statement, just google Ricky Ross and Gary Webb. You'll read for a few hours, but you'll understand how corrupt the government is.

I'm off track, but I thought I'd throw that in.

We all know how important the woman has been to the black family since the days of slavery, and when the black woman decided to use, well, let's just say a lot of kids were watching themselves. Thus, the cycle of grown ass kids.

I've seen many documentaries that assert this point. But I believe there's more.

I had a conversation recently with an old high school teacher of mine who is now a counselor. She told me that the overwhelming majority of the students she sees in her office with problems are from single-parent homes.

Most of us grow up in split or single parent homes, and it's a disadvantage. Any person who has two good parents in the home has a leg up on their counterparts.

If you want to understand better the two problems that follow, it starts here. If there's no one to teach right from wrong, no one will learn. If there is no positive example, no one will learn. Ignorance will breed.

The Solution: We need to stop having children out of wedlock (For the record, I'm single and have no children). I don't know how that happens. But it's what we need.

If parenthood is actually planned and not accidental, then your children won't be incidental. You'll actually care instead of cursing yourself once you realize you've conceived a child. It's suppose to be one of the greatest gifts in the world, but the majority of the people treat the idea of birthing a child like its a death sentence.

The Black Family deals with how the parents cherish their child and their loved ones. The more time you spend with your family, immediate and extend, the better chance you have at improving the lives of those people, especially the most youthful generation.

Parents, take your kids around their grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles (exclude the crazy uncles and the aunts who can't cook, please).

It could start an easy start, simple like Christmas dinner.

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NO. 4: Buffoonery and Exploitation Television

Ed's Note: We're taking a look at what I consider to be the five biggest problems facing black America today in an effort to no be reactive. Nos. 3 thru will appear over the next few days.

Strippers dancing on poles during an awards show. Do I really need to type much more? I don't but I will.

I know this station is about its bottom line, but president Deborah Lee needs have her morals renewed. Selling out for the almighty dollar is not what Black America needs to see. Black society of the mind-20th century prided itself on valuing self above the dollar.

That's why the Montgomery bus boycotts were successful. That's why the civil rights movement was successful.

But we're at a point where BET, which unfortunately is the black man's pilot, and most of the free-thinking world's pilot as well, for life. People watch BET for the trends in hip hop, and follow them. BET understands that it is a cash cow for its boss Viacom and not a free-thinking entity itself, thus we have the emergence of the Buffoonery and Exploitation Television.

No BET News. No Talk with Tavis (or some other reputable figure). No educational entertainment.

Instead we get our fill of awards shows with women dancing on stripper poles on stages. Videos with a hybrid form of English. A top 10 countdown show voted on by the teens who watch the show, which only perpetuates and substantiates the ignorance all over again. The only thing about BET that you can say is positive? At least UnCut is of the air (did anyone else catch Snoop Dogg, who is dealing with his own issues these days, saying tha he wanted to bring Uncut back).

The Solution: A boycott would be nice, but won't happen. But we need these things in a Black Entertainment Network.

1. An in-depth black news magazine hour once a week.

2. A daily 30-minute newscast that doesn't totally depend on CNN and AP feeds for its reports. 3. A one-on-one talk show like Tavis once had.

4. A thirty-minute Round table with four different figures in Black America from different walks of our spectrum to account once a week with their opinions on the happenings of the week in relevance to Black America.

5. Solid Black entertainment like the Girlfriends re-runs that showcase Black America in a progressive, yet still comedic light.

6. A weekly show dedicated to spoken word during a prime time hour.

To do these things, someone must buy BET from Viacom because Viacom doesn't quite care about "black people" much in the same way GWB does. It's not direct, but you can definitely see the effort lacking.

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NO. 5: The Lack of A Leader

I made a quick joke about Jesse Jackson in my last post. But this is real.

Jesse is, at heart, a good man, and we all have our indiscretions. But people don't look at him in the light with which he seemed to promise us back when MLK had in some ways anointed him. There is the infamous love child, which some people won't let the man live down no matter how much more good he does.

The thing is that the political black leader is no longer revered. Give thanks to Marion Barry and Jesse for that one. When it came to it, even Martin did his dirt. But his words and voice were so strong that they actual overshadowed the flaws, and immortalized his spoken values.

There is no voice that strong that can collectively bring together the black nation within America.

The Solution: Obama in '08 would be a significant start. But at this point, I don't think it's what will work best. The black man doesn't need an institution to define or assert power. We need someone we all will listen to, and find some semblance in his/her struggle and subsequent rise to success.

People wonder why Muhammad Ali was such as transcendent figure. It wasn't because of what he did in the ring. Don't get me wrong, he was a great fighter. But one solid left hook from Joe Frazier and Ali might not be considered the greatest athlete ever, let alone even the greatest boxer.

What made Ali Ali was his ability to lead thru his words and by example. Remember him not going to Vietnam? It was the most powerful political statement an American athlete ever made.

Where am I going? Mike Jordan shoulda stepped up long ago. Magic only did so, and I'm not saying it was a bad thing, because he contracted HIV and didn't have much of a choice.

The marquee athletes have always had the ability to speak their minds and say something profound knowing everyone will listen, but never do because they don't want to lose that endorsement with Sprite. Tiger Woods? Dude could probably hit a whiffle ball within a foot of his aim, but won't rally the people.

Same can be said for Jay-Z, and any other intelligent free-thinking black entity that could move the masses. If just one of these people would realize they have enough money to sustain their grandkids grandkids and that they don't really need that much more money, then we might get some where.

At this point, the only people who say things with any serious political fervor are Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle (Could people please stop misspelling this dude's name?). Two strong voices, but someone say something every three years in an HBO Special won't change too much.

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It's Just My Thoughts

I got into a heated discussion with Wildcat Squared about my previous post about the n-word.

She claimed that the Rev. Jesse "I need to be fathering my love child" Jackson and Sen. Maxine "John Legend didn't write that song about you" Waters were a bit tardy or reactive with their desire to get the entertainment industry to stop using the n-word. Of course, this was caused by Kramer (I'm not typing the dude's real name because he's not worthy) going KKK.

I didn't find it to be a reactive ploy (read the entry below). We all know that the n-word is going to be laced throughout albums and movies until time ends because their is too much money to be made off of it. But I still thought it was measured move to make black people see that it's hypocritical to blast a white man for using a word we shouldn't use ourselves.

If we say "nigga this, nigga that" every five minutes, especially with a negative tilt which is most often the case, why shouldn't anybody else be able to use the word. The reason you hear the n-word come out the mouths of hispanics, asians and whites is because we have made it permissible to use the word. Whites call other whites "niggas." So do hispanics and asians, but not realizing what they're actually saying, and where it really came from. They just know it to be the hip thing to do.

Anyways. I digress.

Since Dub-Squared thought it was reactive. I'm going to be somewhat proactive and list what I think are the top five problems in black society today, and then give a quick remedy - or at least attempt to do so. (though it really can't be proactive because we're not pre-empting anything, I don't think.)

I started writing, and it seemed like a lot. So I'm gonna spread this over a few days and get all of my thoughts out.

But I'll at least give you the list so you know what's coming. Here goes ...

5. The Lack of a Leader
4. BET
3. The Missing Black Family
2. The Failing Public School System
1. Hip Hop's Negative Takeover

if you think there's anything that should be on this list, let me know.

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