Dear fellow Alums of Morehouse and Spelman,

Homecoming is a special time for me. Anybody that knows me, knows that there are only a FEW people from Morehouse and Spelman I can stand to eff with on a regular basis, if you are reading this you are probably one of them. Homecoming is one of the few times I can deal with the pretentious buppie wannabes that come back cuz I know that my peoples will be there. It sucks to not be there.

I’m trying to hold it down here in rainy Nashville and do it up TSU style, but I’m going to miss going from tent to tent, trying to FIND certain people and avoid about 10 others at the same time.

I’m going to miss randomly seeing all of my mom and dad’s classmates and trying not to slur my words or stumble over the curb as I’m talking to them in a drunken haze.

I’m going to miss randomly bumping into my sisters and then sneaking into the hole that they never fix in the fence to go to the tent and see my older family members and share a beer or two with my dad….yeah that’s probably what I’m going to miss the most this year! Drinking that beer with my dad, shooting the shit, introducing him to some random chick that’s hanging with me that day.

Am I going to miss having fake conversations with some dude/chick from my class that I never would have talked to before? No….

Am I going to miss the tent?….THE tent….HELL YES.

Am I going to miss the bougie homecoming parties? A little actually….as much as I talk bad about the posing and fake ass hobnobbing, there is something sickly entertaining about watching it go down…and every now and again I’ll see that one person I haven’t seen in years that will make it all worthwhile.

Anyway….have the fun you would have whether I was there or not….trust me, you’ll probably have more fun without me! I’ll be back when my life is right….

Love/Hate,

The Killa

(cross posted from the myspace blog)

So I was talking to a friend tonight on the phone and we continued a discussion we were having on AIM about marriage. I had told her that I don’t want to get married, something I decided on a while ago honestly, but tend to go back and forth on. I mentioned the possibility of an open marriage, but that’s about it for the Killa.

I don’t really see the point of marriage anymore to be completely honest. I mean I can see myself falling in love with some lucky chick one day and loving her with all of my heart, but I don’t think I need a ceremony and a ring and a bunch of people to validate it for me.

This isn’t the days of the yesteryear where you’d be burned at the stake and have to be brandished a town hussy and harlot. With 50% (or more) of all marriages ending in divorce and countless others mired in uncomfortable agreements of mutual misery, it just doesn’t appeal to me.

Hell even the tax breaks aren’t worth it honestly, at least until you have kids and I should check with my accountant friends, but it might work out BETTER for both parties to remain UNMARRIED.

Then there is the elephant in the room that no one ever really likes to talk about (but luckily for me, my friend was game!), sex. That’s what it usually boils down to for marriage for alot of people, it’s why alot of marriages end, and why alot of marriages go through undue stress. People don’t talk about what they like, they REALLY don’t talk about what they don’t like, and they think by doing the same things over and over eventually something will change for the positive (the definition of insanity). Sometimes it’s pride…everybody think’s that their sex is the best. Sometimes it’s the inability to hurt your loved one’s feelings. Either way you end up doing something far more hurtful in the long run. You either suppress the feelings until they explode or you cheat. But monogamy is so natural right?

The Killa ain’t with it homie….it all ends in the song I’m listening to….”Hollywood Divorce”….eff that!

I had to look at my little digital calendar in the bottom right corner to check and see for myself! It’s 2006 folks, the end of it to boot!

There are African Americans who are scared to/won’t eat watermelon and/or fried chicken in front of people of other races for fear of “perpetuating stereotypes”. Ladies and gentlemen this is the DUMBEST shit since being in high school and not wanting to make A’s so as to not seem like a nerd.

Way to deprive yourself of something you enjoy so that the way someone else sees you, which is PROBABLY already skewed ANYWAY before you take a single action, isn’t negatively affected by stereotypes.

I never understood that way of thinking. “I’m not going to eat watermelon because they think that’s all black people do and by gosh, I am not just a watermelon eater, why I eat creme brulee and cavier!” If someone is going to judge you on what you eat and/or how you eat it, then you are ABOVE their judgement anyway.

I love watermelon and I love fried chicken…and it’s not because I’m black, it’s because it’s DAMNED good food. Picture me giving that up because some redneck in some trailer park (or some redneck who’s snarled his way to upper management for that matter) is laughing at me? YEAH RIGHT!

I laughed at the Petey Greene clip (located here if you’ve never seen it…opens in new window or tab if you’re using firefox which you SHOULD) the first time I saw it, but the second time I listened to what he said. His methods are abrasive, even more so than my own, but he’s right.

Black folks we got bigger fish to fry…and eat…without worrying about what someone thinks about what/how we eat!

The past two weeks have been rough for the Killa….

Since making a final table on ESPN Poker on Sunday night I haven’t finished better than 42nd! I’ve been getting bad beat after bad beat (for those unfamiliar with poker terms that’s when you have the percentage lead going into the last card and then lose cuz the one card that could beat you comes up). And the rest of the time I’m getting terrible hole cards.

The Georgia Bulldogs have revealed themselves to be frauds (not as much of a fraud as someone else I’ll get to later….). They are 0 for the State of Tennessee this year in the SEC. They’ll be lucky to make a bowl this season. I mean I had low expectations coming into the season, but I forgot those because they started off relatively well. Blah!

Then the Falcons lost a bad game to the Giants yesterday. And my fantasy team is shot to shit as well. Going into tonight’s game I was down 10 points with the Chicago Bears D yet to play (and they usually give me about 20 points a game). Well they are getting mollywhopped. I’ll prolly lose all 4 of my Yahoo games this week, though I’m still kicking butt in my ESPN League (lemme not jinx it though).

Let’s not even talk about my non-existant love life or financial troubles.

Shit is rough….but then I could be WNC of Jacksonville, Florida. Who has been living a lie for almost 10 years now. A well developed lie that was uncovered on a whim once and for all this afternoon. Everything done in darkness eventually comes to light. Her lies compounded and compounded and now we see them as massive as….well as she is. Well….a long time weight (heh) has been relieved. Carry on with your sham of a life chick.

(Cross posted from my myspace)
My boy Nile….

One of my oldest friends on the planet. I’ve only known like 5 people longer who’ve been continuous in my life.

We talk just about every single day via MSN Messenger. I’ve got more inside jokes with him than anyone else. I’ve had my highest highs and he’s been there and I’ve had my lowest lows and he’s been there too. We fell out on a few occassions, but judging on recent events, that’s just as much me as it is him.

Fuck it, at the risk of pissing off my other good friends, I’d have to say he’s my best friend. He knows me better than anyone other than Nina and Che. When the chips are down he’s always there for me.

This time last year I was at his old house aka The Lodge partying like it was 1999. It was one of the best parties I’ve ever attended, and most of the reason was cuz it was my boy Nile!

Without blowing his spot too much, it’s been a rough year for him, but brighter days are ahead! I believe in him!

Happy Birthday Man!

Thanks for being my friend for so many years! Thanks for being the brother I never had!

I am declaring my undying love for Whitney Houston! I don’t care if she’s ghetto. I don’t care if she was on drugs!

Ever since the episode of Silver Spoons when she visited and Dexter was drooling all over himself for her I have liked Whitney. I realize I was 6 at the time….I don’t care!

About once every two weeks or so, I make it a point to go to Youtube and look at her video for I’m Every Woman. I already mentioned this on my myspace.

Anyway, it reminds me of what once was. Even if by that time she was married to Bobby and stuff, she was still the shit! Pregnant and everything!

And now she’s clean (fingers crossed) and divorcing Bobby! You KNOW she’s gonna return to the old days. She’s gonna make Mariah’s comeback look like small potatoes!

And the Killa can’t wait!

Last night as I was winning the ESPN Multitable Tournament (my second such win), I started reading some of my old entries on this site through the archives. I read the first year or so.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the fact that I wrote about SOMETHING every single day. I would write about whatever came to mind. But I was consistant.

Some of the entries were funny to look back on. Some of them felt like “deju vu all over again” as Yogi Berra would say. It’s funny how I’m going through many of the same things I did before. That’s a sign of not living right, because you are supposed to LEARN from past problems.

I think my favorite of the old entries is the Valentine’s Day Press Conference entry. I think I combined alot of the things that make me so interesting to myself. My self effacing humor first and forefront. My subtle shouts out and nods to different people and experiences I’ve had (the reporters and such). I had a knack for storytelling.

Now I’m sort of beat down. I feel like I’ve written just about everything I can, in just about every form imaginable. I wrote in the first person, I wrote in the third person, hell I even wrote in the second person!

I poured out my heart, and other times remained super cryptic and secretive, so much so that I had to think REALLY hard about what the hell I was going through when I wrote some of the things I did.

Fundamentally I’m still the same guy, but my will is weak nowadays as is my drive and initiative. I’m not as low as I HAVE been, but I’m definitely in a valley.

Will things improve? We’ll see won’t we!

That was a LOOOONG tomorrow eh? Yeah that’s my life lately.

This won’t be part 2 of Shotgun P. Diddy’s Adventures, though I assure you at some point those stories will be told. Sometimes other things get in the way.

So how are things in Killaville? Not so good, but you knew that. For once I’ll spare you the gory details, that gets old even to me!

The Killa is now a Johnny Cash fan. No seriously, check my myspace page if you don’t believe me.

It started a few months ago. Well scratch that. It STARTED when I saw Kill Bill, vol. 2 and heard A Satisfied Mind. I really thought it was an excellent song so I added it to my collection and then I stumbled upon A Boy Named Sue which was ANOTHER great song. Time passed and then one day, as I’m known to do, I was looking up random things on wikipedia.

It usually starts with me looking up one thing and being intrigued by some aspect of it and clicking the link from that entry to another then to another and so on and so forth. I’ll have gone from looking at the entry for Liverpool FC to the entry on Kevin Bacon before I know what happened.

So one day I stumbled upon the man in black’s entry and I figured, why not? I gave a few songs a listen and lo and behold I was a fan.

Then Sunday as I was fighting my ongoing (and losing) battle with insomnia after having watched the Wire episode OnDemand, I noticed that Walk The Line was coming on. So I gave it a looksee, and as it turns out, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

I admired Johnny’s tenacity in going after June Carter, even in the midst of his other life aspects falling apart. Johnny Cash was a man after my own heart. Writing his soul in his lyrics and taking up the causes of the less fortunate when he could (listen to the lyrics of Folsom Prison Blues and Man In Black).

At any rate, I’ve decided…or rather observed….that I too walk the line. Not just in relationships and the pursuit of them, but in life in general.

If you haven’t seen the movie, I encourage you to take a chance on it. If you haven’t really listened to any Johnny Cash, I encourage you even more to give him a listen. Listen to the words.

I know, I know, a long time Nashville resident plugging Johnny Cash is so cliche, but trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

Happy belated shouts out to my boy E. Meezy and my young estranged friend P. Jizzle, I still love you even if I’m not allowed to!

To my friends who are going through things, keep your head up….there are more good days than bad days, even when the bad days that come seem like the worst! Life is short….too short to stay down!