And Now A Resolution

I don’t actually believe in New Year Resolutions. I think they are just something that you set up for yourself so that later on in the year or the week, you can look back on yourself as a failure or as someone without determination or will power.

When I was quitting smoking I would feel that way. I would stub out my last cigarette on New Year’s Eve, walk about free and clear on New Year’s Day and then go into a store on the 2nd and without even thinking, buy a pack and light up as soon as I walked out of the door. Can you say loser?

Loser!

I believe that if there is something that you really want to do then you wouldn’t have to set a certain date in the year for it to start happening, you’d just do it. However, this year I may have found something that I might be able to get my teeth into.

A few years ago, I bought a book by Ernest Hemingway called Garden of Eden. If I can remember correctly, it was about an author, his wife and a girlfriend that Hemingway started writing in the 40’s. Then Hemingway put the book down and picked it up again 10 or 20 years later to finish it. I guess he must have filled his time with big-game hunting, bar hopping or electro shock treatments. Anyway, so I get to about a third to halfway through the book and it changes suddenly. I don’t mean it evolved into a wonderfully new and welcomed direction. I mean that the entire flow and style of his prose had just for no reason changed. It was the same story and I didn’t like it.

I figured that this must have been the point that Hemingway picked up his story again. And recently I thought, that’s how I write but without the excuse of a 20 year vacation. You see, I have never really been proud of anything that I’ve written. I’ve been pleased with one or two pieces, but I will always go back and think there may have been a better way to have approached something, to have made it even better.

Also, I don’t often edit my stuff once I’ve written it, and to tell you the truth there isn’t much of a proofread either. I may change a word here or there once it’s published because I’ve noticed I’ve either missed something or misspelled something else. Nevertheless I’m usually just so glad to be done with it; I will just throw it out there as is. It’s like sex for me, it may not come out to be the best that I’ve ever had but the sheer joy of ejaculation will more than override the fact that I didn’t suck on this titty here or grab a hold of that butt cheek there. But like Hemingway’s novel, I'll drop ideas midstream and not head anywhere, and that probably isn’t good enough.

So this is it. This will be my resolution for the year. Even though I know that writing for the computer is different from writing for print, I will start to edit my pieces more. I will try not to bring up ideas that are dropped halfway through a paragraph or sentence. I will try to develop a steady flow through my work that will go from beginning to end. The spelling thing, I’m going to let go, if Word can’t fix it before it’s published then you’ll have no chance of me catching it.

So there it is, my first and only resolution for 2009: To try to write gooder.

How much is too much Information?

I don’t get it, I really don’t. Maybe it’s a generation thing. Maybe it’s something like certain dance movements that you only do when you are in early 20’s because to do them when you are older would throw your spine so far out of alignment you’d have to walk with a cane for the rest of your life. I don’t understand why the need to share what we are doing every minute of the day with friends or even complete strangers. Now I’m not talking about people with small children who really do need to know where the kids are and that they are safe, or people who do that for security reasons. I’m referring to those of us who sign on to certain websites and log every minute detail of our lives no matter how dreary and obsequious those details may be.

About 2 or 3 months ago I signed up with Facebook because a friend asked me to. But apart from him and an organization that asked to become a friend, I have no one else listed as a friend. It is not because I want to remain reclusive or set apart from everyone else, but because I don’t really know anyone else who belongs to Facebook, so I mainly keep some junk on it that will be easy for me to find in the future and prevent me from cluttering up my computer. It’s another resource for me.

I should also mention that I belong to 4 or 5 groups that have pages on Facebook, one of which is my gym. Out of the 5000 members that belong to my gym there are about 144 of us who also signed up for this group and except for the trainers; I haven’t seen a single person that I know. But it is a source that I can use to learn things about different events going on, or schedules that I might not be aware of. Also, Facebook is an icon featured on my iPod so it’s all linked.

Recently I noticed that I had not filled out the profile part of the webpage for Facebook and that there was also a section where you could tell people what you were doing exactly at that moment. There was a field for about 30 or 60 characters or words where you could say what you were doing at that moment. You could tell people that you were heading over to the movies, or having a cup of coffee with Jill or soaking in the tub with Bob. These blurbs about your life would then be instantly sent out to your friends’ email bins, websites or sent out as a text message to their cell phones and I thought this must be how Twitter works.

But then I asked myself, why would I want to let people know about every minute of my hum drum life, it’s tedious enough just living it. And worse than that, why on earth would I want to know about someone else’s life minute by minute? So you felt a little ill after lunch, do I really need to know right away? That shit can wait, no pun intended.

Take for example I gave a homeless guy a dollar after he held the door for me at a convenience store this evening. Should I have let the world know right away? I don't think so. If it’s really that important to you we can talk and reflect about it at the end of the day over the telephone if I haven’t turned it off and if I know that’s what the conversation will be about it probably will be off.

I know that there are many people who have signed up for Twitter and I guess similar programs and I don’t mean to point fingers at anyone because it’s not about them, or even you, it’s about me. I like to be up on gadgets and trends and stuff, but this one… I don’t get. It's funny that I’ll show you a picture of my behind and maybe more in a heartbeat as long as the picture looks good, but Twitter somehow seems like it’s too much of an invasion of my privacy and that just doesn’t sit well with me.

Am I wrong?

Black History Month Redux

I have always read books. I like to read books. I would like to say all types of books, but that wouldn’t be true. I don’t do non-fiction well unless it’s a history, and even then it would depend on what kind of mood I’m in for me to read it. I like novels. Give me a good fiction that tries to explore the “human condition” (cliché) and I will be wrapped up for days if not weeks trying to get to the end. Then I’ll spend even more time trying to decipher how the story relates to my own life. Right now I’m in the middle of Anna Karenina, Oprah’s book club version and even though I know how it’s going to end, I’ve seen at least 4 movie versions of the story, I’m still enthralled. I should have that same feeling for poetry, but I don’t.

That’s the reason why I have never seen Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam. I don’t think I could get into it. In fact the only poem that I remember from high school is Macavity the Mystery Cat by TS Elliot, and that’s only the first 2 lines. Poetry for me has always been an arduous task of reading between phrases and trying to find meaning when I would be so much happier if someone were to just slap my face and say, “Hey this is what I want you to know.” But no one ever did that to me, except for Essex.

I have been thinking about Essex Hemphill for the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure why, maybe because of Black History Month or maybe not, but Essex was a poet. He was also an editor and an activist. I met him at a barbeque party for Marlon Riggs and himself in West Philly. I think the party was to celebrate the release of Marlon’s film Tongues Untied, I’m not sure. I was just there for the free booze and red meat; I was young.

I had read and skipped over some of Essex’s poetry in the book In the Life, so I knew he was, but I didn’t really have much to say to him. Nevertheless we did talk for a little bit, about what I don’t know.

I remember that he had this way of asking a question that made you know that he really wanted know what your answer would be. He had a way of looking at you and you could tell he was analyzing you. He would look into you as far as you could let him and maybe even a little further without being obtrusive. He had the ability to take your thoughts without you being aware of it happening and then place them back where they belonged before you knew they were missing.

I knew Essex for about 2 years and he would do this to me again and again. I only saw him 4 or 5 times but each time was so intense that I would have to have a cigarette after talking to him. It was almost as if we’d had sex and I had walked away panting, trying to catch my breath. Then Essex died.

I went to the memorial service they held at the Quaker Friends Meeting House for him. I didn’t really think that I would miss him. We weren’t great friends, but I did.

I still do.

So I found this poem written by Essex and I’m working on trying to understand it. I hope the family doesn’t sue me.

Conditions XXI

You judge a womanby the length of her skirt,

by the way she walks,

talks, looks, and acts;

by the color of her skin you judge

and will call her "bitch!"

"Black bitch!"

if she doesn't answer your:

"Hey baby, whatcha gonna say

to a man."

You judge a woman

by the job she holds,

by the number of children she's had,

by the number of digits on her check;

by the many men she may have lain with

and wonder what jive murphy

you'll run on her this time.

You tell a woman

every poetic love line

you can think of,

then like the desperate needle

of a strung out junkie

you plunge into her veins,

travel wild through her blood,

confuse her mind, make her hate

and be cold to the men to come,

destroying the thread of calm

she held.

You judge a woman

by what she can do for you alone

but there's no need

for slaves to have slaves.

You judge a woman

by impressions you think you've made.

Ask and she gives,

take without asking,

beat on her and she'll obey,

throw her name up and down the streets

like some loose whistle --

knowing her neighbors will talk.

Her friends will chew her name.

Her family's blood will run loose

like a broken creek.

And when you're gone,

a woman is left

healing her wounds alone.

But we so called men,

we so called brothers

wonder why it's so hard

to love our women

when we're about loving them

the way america

loves us.

"Conditions XXI" © 1986,1996, 2002 by Essex Hemphill