I have an admission. It's something that in some circles might get me shot. In others, I might be looked as or presumed to be certifiably gay (which I'm not, though I have nothing against homosexual people).
My name is Vic Damone, Jr. and I'm a quasi-female television addict. About 40 percent of my television consumption consists of things no man would ever watch a full episode of even with a gun to his head.
I've watched a full season or two of Top Model. I loved the Golden Girls (though I refuse to watch re-runs). I'm intrigued by Project Runway (because I have a ton of female friends who watch it), though I haven't seen but like five minutes of it. I watch The Tyra Banks Show, Oprah and The View if I get the chance.
If you're wondering why, it's because I'm curious to see what females are thinking. If I could have one superpower, it would be that of Mel Gibson's character Nick in What Women Want (one of my favorite movies). I pick up Essence and Cosmo to try and learn as much about women.
If women are from Venus, television, magazines and my females friends are my satellites that's I've launched into orbit to study that planet.
More than anything, I'm addicted to The Game and Girlfriends and Sex and the City re-runs. I'm willing to admit this. The shows Mara Brock Akil and her writers have created are thought-provoking, witty and funny takes on the mid-to-upper class black life.
Writing the way they do is what I aspire to do with my life, thoughts and words. And I feel like I learn something about women and about writing with every word I hear on either of these shows.
So yes. I admit it. I've watched every episode of the first two seasons of The Game twice, at least. I've seen most of the episodes of Girlfriends, and will purchase every season on DVD once the prices come down.
And I'm overly excited for the return of the shows on Sunday night (although I hate that they're competing with the SuperBowl).
Whew! The secret is out. And I'm happy about it.
P.S. For discretion's sake: I'm a die-hard football junkie. I live and breathe baseball. I die during the Boondocks and Everybody Hates Chris. I still watch SportsCenter repeats. And CSI has kept me from even thinking about doing some really dumb things in life.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
This is My Confession
Revisiting the Resolutions
I've gotta get away from politics again. Sorry. I'll get back at the self-made black problem answers tomorrow. Today, though, let's go somewhere else.
Let's look back at my New Year's Resolutions. I figure that since I blogged about them, the best way to keep them up is check on them at the end of each month. So, that's what I'm gonna do.
1. Find a new job. I'm currently waiting on a second interview for a good-paying gig that I know I'll enjoy. When (If) I get it, you'll be the first to know, aside from the Moms. Oh, I also got the applications that I've been working on for over a month done finally. Yes, I job application one actually must put some thought into, walk away from and then come back. Imagine that. I hope I get an interview for the position.
2. Be a better friend to my good friends. I've talked to most of them. Reconnect with about four that I hadn't talked to in a few months. Went out to dinner with a few.
3. Get to 199. still got about 20 lbs to go. I've gotta start working out consistently.
4. Write three poems a week. I'm gonna scale this back to two. This one is hard because I have to have inspiration to go there, and be in front of computer (my memory sucks).
5. Finish, perfect, then actively shop my screenplay. So this is a work in progress. But I came up with the PERFECT re-scripted ending. It's floating in my mind, I just have to put it on that wax. Also, I need to refine a few scenes and then edit the entire thing. Then I can start shopping it.
6. Completely remove the word Nigga from my vocab, and get off the sailboat. Umm, I've censored myself about 90 percent of the time, which is good for me. I'm weening myself off as though these negative words were squares. Slowly but surely.
7. Read a book a month. I'm about to finish Souled Out. It's an interesting read. Not as good as I would have liked though. Not solution-oriented for the problems it presents. But it's definitely thought provoking.
8. Less TV. It's off now. But I wonder what's gonna happen when the good television starts back up? (Girlfriends and The Game, specifically).
That's one month, and I guess I'm doing okay. The top three are the most important right now, and I'm making some progress.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Interlude: A Wait for Change
Ed's Note: A quick break from the previously scheduled series for this special announcement.
Obamanation 2008 Hits Kansas City
But on this night, we resolved to walk through those halls underneath Municipal Auditorium inch by inch in an organized manner and through security to hear the man who has the audacity to hope in person.
I can’t tell you how many people (somewhere in the thousands) I followed in line just to get to see Barack Obama. I can’t tell you how many people made it in after me. What I do know is that it was worth the two-hour-plus wait.
See, this country has been waiting - patiently and impatiently - for about 40 years, waiting to hear a voice that moved our American people the way John F. Kennedy did. Waiting to hear a voice that dared us to dream the way Martin Luther King, Jr. did. Waiting to hear a voice that carried us through doubtful times the way RFK was forced to do.
I heard that voice on Tuesday night in Kansas City. I saw a people – mixed with white, brown and black faces, young, younger and old bones, women and men – who earnestly believed the words coming from that voice. The voice, of course, belonged to Barack Obama.
He grazed over all of the important issues – from healthcare to ill-equipped inner-city schools systems to social security to the war in Iraq. He borrowed a phrase from Dr. King, saying he was running because of what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now,” concerning these issues. He discussed what he plans to do to right the wrongs of the last seven years and the ignorance that is Washington.
"We are at a defining moment in our history," Obama said. "Our nation is at war. Our planet is in peril and the dream that so many generations fought for feels like it's slowly slipping away.
"We cannot wait to fix our schools. We cannot wait to fix a broke health care system. We cannot wait to bring an end to global warming. We cannot wait to bring this war in Iraq to a close."
And while that mean plenty, hearing him say these things in person seemed to matter little. Obama’s greatest strength lies in his ability to make you believe. You could see the sincerity in his eyes. You could hear the truth in his words. You could feel his ability to make light of important matters while still speaking candidly.
He joked about being distant cousins with Dick Cheney, and how he was thankful that, even though they're kin, Cheney’s name wouldn’t be on the ballot on Super Tuesday. Same with George Bush. Obama heard the random shouts of impatient listeners, and responded on cue. He recited the Pledge of Allegiance in response to people who claim that he doesn’t even know it.
And, of course, he spoke about change, the focal point of his campaign. He spoke so much about change that I kidded with a fellow supporter that Obama should make Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” song his campaign anthem.
But it made sense (Think: “I’m starting with the man in the mirror…” and "...make that change"). Obama declared that change is not about him, that it’s not about a top-down mentality. Rather, he said each person must decide he or she has the audacity to hope, and take those hopes to the next level. Then work toward achieving the dreams and goals of this nation.
“Change in America never happens from the top down,” Obama said. “It happens from the bottom up. It happens because ordinary people decide to do extraordinary things. It happens because we’re a decent and generous people willing to work hard and sacrifice for future generations.”
It’s the kind of hope the majority of us who trudged along in line at a snail’s pace for a few hours had just to hear him speak. It’s the kind of hope this nation needs to have embedded in its leader. Most important, it’s the kind of hope we need for tomorrow.
I don’t hate or even dislike Hillary Clinton. I don’t even loathe or seriously dislike John McCain. If you choose either of them, it’s your right and more power to you. I won't think ill of you. But I can tell you this much, on Tuesday night in Kansas City, I heard the voice of a man who gives us the best chance for positive change in America, and his name is Barack Obama.
And I can’t even complain about the super long wait and slow winding walk, because it was worth it every minute.
Click Here to Read More..
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
A1: The Black Family
To be honest, I can't quite say I know exactly how to absolve Black America of its greatest problems. On a grand scale, that's damn near impossible.
No one man has the ability to move our people, and rarely, if ever, has he. In the 50s and 60s there was Martin Luther King. But there was also Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, who subscribed to different beliefs about how to correct the ills of society. They had unique followings.
Now we have new "leaders," and I put that in parenthesis for a reason. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are about the closest thing to leaders that we've had in some time. They both have their flaws - the main one being their desire to align themselves with causes that permit them to line their pockets.
Some (including Toni Morrison) once heralded Bill Clinton a champion for the black man. Clinton finds himself fighting for his wife against Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. And Obama, and yes, I hope he wins the race. But say he does win, will Obama have enough power, as president of these United States, to bring about positive change concerning the issues I listed in my last post?
I doubt it.
Yet in still, here are the ideas I have for each of the problems I briefly discussed yesterday. If you don't know I believe one of our biggest issues is that we just lament our issues, and don't come up with ideas for solutions. Here's No. 1.
1. The Black Family. How do we, as a people, turn right the negative ills that have befallen the black family? I think the first step is to stop putting ourselves in positions where a family is broken before it's formed. Stop having children out of wedlock.
The marital bond was put in place for good reason. And the numbers show that the children who are born in stable, two-parent homes are more apt to succeed in school and life versus children born out of wedlock. This by no means says you can't raise a successful child as a single parent. It just says that the odds are against you.
On another front, our males must, and I mean must, be men instead of grown children. Be there for your seeds. They need you. Work with your child's mother for the child's best interests. Monitor what your children get involved in at a young age. On Friday I met a seven-year-old (white) kid who has a Facebook account. This should not happen. Be better parents and adults.
On another level, a lot of our families have been built on the traditions established by grandparents. They defined stability for most of us. Family gatherings, holidays and even birthdays centered around the grandparents. As some of them have passed, families' structures have fallen apart because there's no one there to continue the traditions we grew up with. Someone needs to step up, and continue to instill these necessary values in our children and give them that invaluable bonding time so they see the importance of family, so they know their family.
This isn't something that can be done on a universal level. It's a man by man, family by family situation that must be met head on by each family. No one man can say, "black families be better" or enact a law that forces people to do right in this situation. We have to desire to do right by our kinfolk, then do it.
Okay, I'm going to do this day by day. Tomorrow will be solution No. 2: The Black Soul.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Back to Black
So, we're back here again. Contemplating the issues in Black America. Wondering how we right what's wrong. But this time there's a twist. In the conversation I had with Wildcat-Squared last night, I told her while name her three biggest problems in Black America, she had to name problems of blacks created by blacks that can be fixed by blacks, i.e. no other races are allowed in the discussion.
I've been on this kick about not blame other races and the establishment for things we can control/fix. I'm subscribing to this new thought: "People who overemphasize the victim mentality don't dream. They live nightmares."
It's a line I came up with while considering a lot of things: King's I Have A Dream speech, A Raisin in the Sun and A Dream Deferred to be specific.
Here are the problems I came up with. In the next post, I'll give my solutions to each of the problems. Here goes:
1. The Black Family. I can take this a million directions. The rise of teen pregnancy, the crack epidemic, children born out of wedlock, the lack of positive examples, high divorce rates. Take your pick. All have had their effect on Black America. But now more than ever we're seeing the results of about 30 years of worsening conditions. Kids don't respect their elders because they don't know them. We used to be raised in communities where the neighbor could whoop that ass if you stepped out of line, and none of that exists now. The Huxtables are a myth, and the black family damn near no longer exists.
2. The Black Soul. I'm just finishing Souled Out? by Shaun Powell of the Newsday. It's an interesting read about how blacks in sports have lost what's most important - their souls. Now I'm going to take it a step further. Black society has souled out almost as a whole. Everything is about cars, cash and jewelry. From our black celebrities to the common man, everyone is looking to flash a little too much, and find the next dollar to flash a little more. All the while, few are tending to their souls. Few value the importance of making the right decisions over the $ight decisions. We have to get back to what's important at all levels - from the common man to the Russell Simmons of the world.
3. Black on Black Hate. Sean Taylor. Antione Walker. Darrent Williams. Jamaal Tinsley. Need I say more? Why do we not appreciate the gains of another black man, and applaud them? Why must we try to bring him down. It used to be that people would talk bad about the black man with the college degree. Now, not only do they talk bad about him, they rob him. They seek out the rich black athletes and rob them. This may be the most complex of the issues because it deals with the other two I've listed.
So those are the self-created problems I think are slowing progress within Black America. Wildcat-Squared only differed with one problem. She added the idea of how blacks tend to mishandle money. It's an important issue. I think it weaves itself in with my second problem sorta. But then again, money is a major part of that one. Anyway, those are the issues. I'll come at you tomorrow with my solutions.
Then I probably going to come with three problems created/manufactured by the establishment.
Out.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Vic Damone and the Old White Man
Before I jump into a story, I have a thought.
I know that most of the free world is wondering "Why Heath Ledger? Why not Britney?"
I have the simple answer. Did you see the over done coverage of Ledger on television yesterday? Now imagine if Britney overdosed. Barack, Hillary and McCain wouldn't be seen on the tube for weeks.
----------
I got up to go back to the HyVee salad bar for seconds. That salad bar is my favorite lunch spot. Just $5 for all you might possibly want in a salad and fruit, and then some.
Anyway, that's neither here nor there. So I get up to head back to the bar for some fruit, and this elderly white man speaks to me before I can take a step. He had to be at least 80 or so.
"Hello," he says.
I respond by asking him how he's doing. I told him I'd be right back, that I was just going to get some water. And that's what I did, skip the fruit. I was curious as to where our talk might go.
So I came right back, and what followed was one of the more intriguing conversations I've ever engaged in as an adult.
You see, I had my computer out so I could finish a few things up. He questioned why I had the computer, and said "I couldn't work any of that stuff no matter how hard I tried."
"If you gave me the time time I could teach you," I said.
My cell phone start chirping. It was a text message about a business meeting I had scheduled.
"And those things, what ever happened to just talking to people, like we're doing here," he question? "I guess our generation are just supposed to be different."
"That they are. "
"In my day, it was all about face to face communication. You talked to people, like we're doing."
"I still subscribed to that."
"But most people don't. What went wrong?"
Of course I had an answer.
"I think people go to college and understand that they're in a progressive environment, and they could talk to anyone. I know that's how I felt. I probably met 100 people my first two days at school. But when you leave that environment and head to back to the real world, you realize it's not as inviting. People close up. They're guarded."
"I can see that," he said. "But I just don't see how people just don't talk to each other. It's not hard."
It's certainly not.
Ed's Note: Part two of the conversation comes tomorrow.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Truth About ...
... Love.
To respond to a statement I heard long ago, the idea of love is perfect. The definition of love we're are given makes perfect sense.
But we humans, we’re far from it. We screw the definition up. We’re not perfected in love because we fear. We fear making mistakes (which makes us make them). We fear each other. We fear harm. We fear death. Trepidation fails us in our quest to realize the only true answer to a perfected love.
In love you cannot fear and you cannot regret. You give without reciprocation. You stay still in moments of despair and in rough waters.
The definition is flawless, if you choose to understand/translate it (see 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13 and 1 John, Chapter 4 - really all of 1 John). Choosing to live the definition is the problem.
We live in a world full of temptation and sin, and we succumb with regularity. Per our choices, we choose to love in the wrong way. We love money (the root of all evil), the wrong people, jobs, cars, clothes, hair. There are countless others.
We choose these circumstances, thus choosing to love the wrong things. The key here: love is a choice. It's something we do, not necessarily something we feel. Love is an action, thus how we reference someone's love for us, through what they do for us. Not what they say, feel or think. What they do. What we do.
This is something I'm just realizing for myself on a certain level.
See, love will test you, but it will not pull you apart by your heartstrings. Our wrong decisions do that, especially when we know right from wrong. It's like playing Russian Roulette with a loaded gun, you always lose.
At least that's what I've learned. That's at least my truth. Click Here to Read More..
Sunday, January 13, 2008
The 8-track skips ...
Upon further review, we are a generation of John Legend track No. 8s., and we love replaying first down.
We're a people made ordinary by our relative relationship problems, issues and situations we allow into our lives over and over again.
Remember when your parents told you to never make the same mistake twice? That whole "same on you, shame on me" cliché. It seems very few of us were listening.
See, I've conversed with four friends in the last week who have either rekindled or revisited past relationships. Another good friend uploaded pics to the Internet of he and an old flame in recent days. Finally, an old friend I know longer talk to blogged about a sociopath/ex of hers, and how she's allowed him back in.
The fact that I even read her blog attests to this theorized problem. I also added my first ex-girlfriend as a friend on MySpace a day ago.
Why are we like this? Why do we not give up on people we shouldn't associate with on any level? Why do we give second and third chances? Why don't we move on? Does the globalization of our world have that profound of an affect on the way we operate?
I don't know.
I draw parallels between the child- and adulthood. The way our parents treated us, the fact correlation to growing up in a one-parent home and having abandonment/approval issues. I know I have them to a degree, and they have played some role in my relationships/friendships to this point.
But that can't be the answer for the majority of the people out there or can it?
Yet it seems we never learn. It seems we just keep allowing the song of our life to skip without ever cleaning the compact disc. It seems as though we all make failing decisions no matter that we know right from wrong.
We all want what we want, even when it's obvious it's not for us. And until we differentiate want from need, passion from infatuation, we'll continue to be John Legend Track No. 8s: 'Ordinary People" repeating the same shit over and over "Again."
Thursday, January 10, 2008
30 I wouldn't trade ...
Somebody posted a MySpace bulletin a few days back, and challenged us to come up with our 30 favorite songs. While I couldn't quite do that, here are the 30 songs I love that came to my head first. Your thoughts?
1. Anthony Hamilton 's Clearly
2. Nancy Wilson's Guess Who I Saw Today
3. The Gap Band's Yearning for Your Love
4. India.Arie's Complicated Melody
5. Musiq Soulchild's Love
6. Stevie Wonder's Visions
7. The Notorius B.I.G.'s One More Chance Remix
8. Dwele's Old Lovas
9. Glenn Lewis' This Love
10. John Coltrane's Central Park West
11. Mike Phillips' Wonderful and Special
12. Joe's All That I Am
13. Brian McKnight's I Remember You
14. Eric Roberson's Just A Dream
15. Jill Scott's Slowly Surely
16. Janet Jackson's Anytime, Anyplace
17. Maxwell's Sumthin, Sumthin Mellosmoothe Mix
18. Bel Biv Devoe's Poison
19. Kanye West's Last Call
20. Dead Prez's Hip Hop
21. Eric Benet's That's Just My Way
22. Jay-Z's Song Cry
23. Luther Vandross' Love Won't Let Me Wait
24. Babyface's For The Cool In You
25. Tony Toni Tone's Lay Your Head On My Pillow
26. Mint Condition's U Send Me Swinging
27. Hi-Five's Unconditional Love
28. 50 Cent's Patiently Waiting
29. Common's Black Maybe
30. John Legend's Again
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
My Resolutions.
So here are my New Year's Resolutions for myself.
1. Find a new job. I want a job that allows me to bleed the creativity that's trapped within my mind. That's it. I don't like averaging 5.2 cube monkey moments a week. To me, there's more to life.
2. Be a better friend to my good friends. Through some of my struggles I've neglected some of my best friendships for a variety of reasons. I know I need to be better about this and I will be.
3. Get to 199. The last time I was under 2 bills was 1998. I want to get on the scale, and be at 195 by May, and it's feasible. I'm somewhere between 223 and 230 consistently, so I can do it. One-Ninety-Nine is more about me promoting an healthy lifestyle for myself as much as it is for aesthetics.
4. Write at least three poems a week. I have the ability to do so amazing things with words, and I need to push these things out of me, and on to paper/word docs. If I can I could have an astounding book of poetry by year's end.
5. Finish, perfect, then actively shop my screenplay. I have a draft of it that I'm tweaking, and it's good. Not as good as it will be by the end of February. But I have a feeling that someone will want it.
6. Completely remove the word Nigga from my vocab, and get off the sailboat. I don't use it much, but I can overuse the N-word in certain situations. I also want to ween myself off of cursing. When I have children I want to have it totally under control. Starting now isn't a bad thing.
7. Read a book a month. It's feasible, and there's great literature out there. I've already downed Forty Million Dollar Slaves by William C. Rhoden. I'm on to Souled Out by Shaun Powell. Michael Strahan's book is next after that. Then I'm going to read Barack Obama's book. Who knows what's up after that.
8. Less TV. The only things I need to watch on television are live sporting events, The Game, Girlfriends, CSI, Everybody Hates Chris and the Boondocks. The rest of it, not so much. And this allows for me to do all of the other things I want to do.
Friday, January 04, 2008
The Sound
I know. I've been ghost.
But know I'm returning to the www, and the real world. Sorry for my abscence. Here's a little something I wrote this week ...
The Sound
This may or may not sound true,
but if you compound the sound
and what you don’t see
with what it is you believe,
you will begin to achieve
on a level you never conceived.
See, your mind is prime real estate
that will depreciate
if you don’t appreciate its true value.
Your soul is controlled
by something you couldn’t fathom
in a far-fetched dream.
And your body is a temple
Jesus himself worshiped in
with sin slithering around
his most trusted friends.
Confident men are blindly omniscient
with 20/20 foresight.
Now, in hindsight,
I wish my mother had
gouged out my pupils at birth
so I wouldn’t have been cursed
with the vision to see my destiny.
I would have rather been lost
in the pit of wilderness
with wolves dressed like sheep,
and sheep sheared to clothe fools,
handed worn-down tools
to construct my castle
and had it blown away with the wind,
so I could find the will to build it again
without questioning “why me?”
and then I’d come to understand
what I was born to see.
See, most of us dream big, and fall short.
But I want to dream bigger,
and fall in cherished beliefs of what will be
instead of being handed a silver spoon.
Let me eat with my hands, bathe with them too.
Believe without seeing, find faith in what His works can do.
Break me down, so I can be found,
Then make me whole, mind body and soul
Guide me out of the dark forest,
gleefully singing the chorus
of a song that rings true,
a sound found deep within a one’s core
few come to hear it,
Verbs and nouns others choose to ignore.
But not I, I comprehend that which suspends time
Is nothing you could ever see.
It’s something you hear in your heart,
something you choose to believe.
