Word to your Mother

Did I ever tell you guys about the time I almost got arrested for pissing on the mayor of New York City? So it’s around Friday night in the city and I was on a blind date of sorts (around some Mexican restaurant on 54th and 8th). This is a few years back when Rudolph “My Quality of Life is Contingent on Your Wrongful Death and / or Sodimizing” Giuliani was our beloved mayor (and by beloved I mean behated). My date wasn’t that blind considering we had seen each other’s BlackPlanet.com’s profile and enjoyed the other’s mega pixels very much (Her mega pixels were huge fellas!) Things were progressing extremely well until I violated my Funkmaster flex “No Drinks in ‘96” Policy. Only twist to this policy - it was directed at myself, I am in fact a lightweight and after two drinks, there may or may not be a vile and / or bile occurrence, but I am definitely playing Russian roulette. So five drinks later, I am feeling like something bad is about to happen. Really, really bad. You know the feeling you get when you know some liquid is about to emerge from somewhere but you are not certain which orifice is scheduled for today’s false start? Yeah, that was me. Thank Jehovah, Allah and Imotep that it was the lesser of three evils. My bladder had had enough and my urethra Franklin decided to sing the praises of Long Island ice teas and Coronas (without lime as not to violate the man code). I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to stop and there was no bathroom in sight. I alerted my date of my quandary and she told me to do what I had to do. So, I untucked my penis from my sock, unleashed at least 2 feet of it, and then proceeded to urinate on the backdoor of a restaurant. Would you like to guess who decides to makes his exit from said backdoor while I was writing my name in lower case, Time’s New Roman, 24 point font, mid stream? Yes, you guessed it. “Nice shoes Mister Mayor!”

The story you have just read is a complete and utter fabrication. As much as I would’ve loved to tinkle all over Giuliani’s Johnston and Murphy’s, this never happened. If you remember Rudy well, had this actually happened, you all would be pouring out forty ounces to honor me on the anniversary of yet another African mistakenly shot 72 times in the spine.

I lied for a reason. The reason is: I am getting tired of people lying for no reason. Is there any integrity left anywhere? I lie to my friends, family, strangers, and anyone within earshot and they all happily reciprocate. My closest relationships are quasi - defined by the people that I lie to the least or am the most honest with (however you chose to spin it). We have grown so accustomed to lying that we find many ways to couch it as to not unravel our perceived moral fibers. Fibbing, white lies, not keeping your word, dishonorable, etc… All those are variations of lying and you are lying to yourself if you believe otherwise. Here are some examples of low-grade lies, but lies nonetheless:

• When you tell your friends you are attending an event or party then you don’t show up or call. Because they will disown you if you just say you can’t make it, right?
• When you tell someone you will be somewhere at a certain time but you are not there on time. Because you didn’t know you were gonna be late and couldn’t call ahead right?
• When an employer tells you they will be in touch after an interview and lack of correspondence is their means of correspondence. As I was the only black man in the building upon entry, I already knew I wasn’t qualified for the position. You could’ve told me when you first saw me and saved us both some time.
• All the lies you tell your kids when you want them to leave you alone, don’t know the answer or don’t feel like explaining (“Word son? Santa Claus bought you that Playstation 3 son?”)
• All the lies your parents told you when they wanted you to leave them alone, didn’t know or didn’t feel like explaining (“Word father? The holy spirit is real son?”)
• All the lies my teachers told me because they were told to tell me (“Word Mr. Kotter son? Ponce DeLeon was looking for the fountain of youth and not trying to capture Native Americans as slaves son?”)
• All the lies my doctors told me to make a profit. (“Word Dr. Sonstein? I need to see you 30 more times at 30 dollars per co-pay so you can tell me that dust makes me sneeze son?”)
• All the lies the advertisers told me to get me to buys some product (“Word son? Snapple is made from the best stuff on earth son? WTF is STUFF son?”)

We all justify our dishonesty by affirming that it is either innocuous or since others constantly engage in prevarication also; it wouldn’t make a difference if we amended our behavior. You are right. It won’t. So maybe we should all start taking responsibility for ourselves AND those around us. Maybe not checking your boy when he shows up 9 hours late isn’t the best means of furthering personal development on anyone’s part. Maybe you should call that employer and let him know you spent time and money to interview and letting you know the outcome is not a privilege but a professional courtesy (you already didn’t get the job so what do you have to lose?) .

As for the harmless nature of lying, we live by words (constitutions, contracts, laws, promises, etc…) You have nothing but your word. Even ACTION is a word. Every instance you engage in dishonor, you strengthen your ability to resist peace of mind, as your well-being is a direct reflection of your ability to keep your word. Look around you. Now look inside you. What have you said you were going to do but has yet to be accomplished? Now, how does that make you feel?

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Strength and Conditioning

If you were asked to live underwater for the remainder of your life, what immediate skill sets would you require to survive? For one, you would have to learn how to convert oxygen from the water into a breathable gas, and since we humans are not equipped with gills, we would need some sort of everlasting breathing apparatus. We would also have to learn all the dangers of the ocean and conduct ourselves accordingly, as to not end up on some fisherman’s hook or a midday snack for a great white. Failure to adapt and evolve in that environment would literally render you a fish out of water and undoubtedly result in death. Taking the same lessons for evolution and survival into account, what skills would an individual from a single parent household require to survive in a relationship?

Although no child is responsible for being raised in a single parent household, living life like a victim (or not realizing that you were one) will undoubtedly ensure future failures. And since my definition of single parent households is not rooted solely in the traditional connotation, you may want to take note. If you only had one parent available as a child, you grew up in a single parent household (obvious enough). If you had both parents in the house, but one was not there physically or emotionally, you grew up in a single parent household. If you grew up in a household with one or both parents engaging in an abusive relationship, you very well could be an orphan. Not learning at all is far better than learning incorrectly if your application results in others adopting, then perpetuating misguided methodologies. As an adult however, the burden of your relationship’s success lies squarely on your shoulders.

Teamwork, Communication, and consideration for your partner are but a few lessons that could easily be missed when growing up with only one parent present. If there were no other male-female relationship archetypes available as a frame of reference, aside from the parent-child model, then the ability to go forth and relate intimately to your own partner is hindered. Single parents probably develop their kids to also be single parents unknowingly and by default. They may also feel guilty about single parenthood and either over compensate or under develop in certain areas (like not whooping lil’ Jo Jo’s butt when he acts up because yo baby daddy ain’t doing right by him). And since these kids have had to make peace with their realities from childhood, under what hallucinogens would they have to be subjected to as adults in order to undertake the task of amending a perfectly dysfunctional but functional business model? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it right? Here’s the catch though; it is broken. You’ve just been hopping around on one leg for so long that bipedal means of transport seems foreign to you. You do not want to be a single parent either (no one does). You just don’t know how not to be. Assuming you even want to try and change, you are also not going to become fluent in Italian after conversing in English all your life, UNLESS you make a daily, concerted effort to learn another language. So order the Roseta Stone Language of Love Cd’s immediately if you intend on living like Cliff & Claire Huxtable.

Lets be clear here, no one ever said children with both parents had the market cornered on relationship skills either. As stated earlier, a flat tire is just as good as no tire at all so please don’t pat yourself on the back because your workaholic, alcoholic, molestoholic, physical abusuaholic dad lived with you. There are also lessons not taught / reinforced when one grows up in a dual parent household. The notion that a partner is essential for survival creates codependent tendencies and can be mentally debilitating when ascribing to the ideal that you are supposed to be in a relationship (but currently aren’t).

Successful single parents are empowering examples for those without the luxury of both. To be quite honest, those examples are very necessary in this day and age as the number of joint parent families drastically diminish. I can’t help but wonder if healthy relationships skills have become obsolete, and just when I think I know what I’m supposed to be doing too. I finally get the hang of this Facebook thing and everyone’s moved on to Twitter.

So enough with the reasons why it is what it is. I am here to make suggestions to make it not what it was so it can be something else (don’t worry, I’m confused too). I bid you all adieu with some helpful hints for dysfunctional adults: Wesside!!

1. Communication. I know you are not comfortable with this because you do not have experience but you have to start now. Communication is not just about speaking on the things that you are comfortable speaking on. If you are getting bored in your relationship for instance, although hard to address, speak on it. You could be surprised by the fact that your partner has been in the relationship for the same duration and could be bored also. Or he / she could leave you immediately for mentioning your disinterest. Either way, you just added some excitement to your life so mission accomplished. You may also want to consider communicating with your ears instead of your mouth.

2. Consideration. Once you are in a relationship, do nothing without considering the other person. NOTHING! Meals, finances, friends, etc are all subject to joint decision making. Whatever he / she likes to do for you, he /she also likes done to them so take heed. And if you enjoy receiving, you damn well better learn to enjoy giving. The last thing you want is to feel like you are in a non-reciprocal relationship because you will conduct yourself accordingly at that point. I take that back. The last thing you want is to be hearing everything I am currently stating from your significant other.

3. Preconditions. There are none. No one ever lasts long in a job where they draw the line as to what tasks they will and will not do, especially if you are part owner. You are joint owner in your relationship and it should be treated as a business. Once you start setting aside non-negotiables, you are actively investing in a failed relationship. Any entrepreneur can tell you that in order to be successful, you must discover, consider, then engage everything that is required (ethically if possible), especially the tasks that are least desired. Keep in mind that you are trying to bring 2 unique and equal sets of values and ideals to the table. Although you are quite comfortable and adept at just doing you, so is your partner. The point however is to do each other (yes, in that way too).

4. Appearances. Your single parent had no one to impress daily so there was no reason to maintain his or her appearances other than for self-serving purposes. Now I know what you’re thinking; “My spouse better love me for me! I ain’t walking around the house in high heels and I will go the gym when I damn well feel like it. I am the boss of me!” I hear you my Brotha! Go on girlfriend! No, seriously, go on. No one can force you to be attracted to someone if you are not. According to my limited circle of friends, people are attracted to other people who are in shape. Not with great asses or strong shoulders or extremely gorgeous, although all that helps, just in shape. All we really have to do is just stay in shape and you are 75% accomplished in the aesthetic department. When your body is on point, you can rip the runway with sweat pants and a wife beater so stop mastering the stairs in Burger King and get you ass on that Stairmaster.

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Lender’s Choice?

1985. 5th grade @ P.S. 398, Walter Weaver Elementary School in Brooklyn, NY. I’m maxin’ and relaxin’ in the schoolyard with my homies. We just wrapped up another intense game of “Flies Up” or Tag or whatever the hell we were doing, and we are all famished (the games we created as kids with a little blue rubber ball were absolutely ingenious; hand ball, Booty’s Up, Flies Up, Suicide, etc). I remember having a ham and cheese bagel in my bag and I proceeded to unearth my delicious bagel goodness in an attempt to masticate (which I try to do at least twice a day). Now, anyone with half a brain knows better than to pull food out in front of friends in grade school - someone is surely going to ask you for some. Tic Tacs, Lemon heads or any other noise generating vittles are better transported in your front shirt pocket as to avoid alerting your compatriots that you may be Sustenance Bearer for the day (“No my brother, you got to get your own!”) So now the whole crew is looking at me like I am the messiah at the last supper and they are all asking that I alleviate their peasant hungers with my magical, never ending bagel. After breaking off the fourth or fifth piece and handing out the rations like Jesus taught me to, I look down in contempt at the paltry sliver remaining for my personal consumption. Wholly incensed by the bagel carcass these vultures left me with (notice the blame transfer), I literally lobbed the remainder into the neighboring yard. Everyone enjoyed that bagel that day but me . . . and I was forced to wait a whopping 3 hours before lunch to try and masticate again (a nooner if you will).

So why did I throw the remaining morsel away? A tiny piece of ham would’ve certainly been better than nothing at all, but I was 10 years old and that was how I responded to tough decisions (I threw bagels over fences). More importantly, why didn’t I just say “no” to these commoners and tell them to get their own? Some folk would have eaten the whole damn thing without batting an eyelash, while their friends lay famished or only given out a sliver or two and called it a day. I was raised to share but my benevolence was to my detriment in that instance. I guess my self-preservation mechanisms hadn’t developed as yet. Or had it?

Like the skunk, I later came to realize that my perceived flaws can easily serve as my self preservation mechanisms. Although I lost out in Bagel-Gate, I am CERTAIN there were far more selectively non-retained memories where I had no rations available but dined quite comfortably on someone else’s vittles. Flash forward 10 years to an infamous pork chop story circulating amongst my friends in which the number of chops I allegedly consumed from my boys kitchen compounds exponentially with every retelling. I have and will continue to vehemently deny said gorging but dammit if those smothered chops weren’t mf’ing delicious! Something tells me I would not have had carte blanche had it not been for my prior gratuitous acts. PAY IT FORWARD WORKS FOR ME!!

Do we have the ability to change our personality? I have always considered my character to be learned and discounted any possibilities that it may be innate. My explanations for any resemblance in behavior to that of my parents dismissed all genetic predispositions and was quite ignorant; My folks are the software engineers and I am the brand new, overpriced Macbook. My parents, along with my surrounding environment, govern all my action and since they can only upload what they know, my operating system will reflect that knowledge by default, hence the similarities. As to why you can have two computers (people) from the same programmer (parents / environment) with completely different operating systems (life choices) occur, no one can ever experience the same set of occurrences as another simultaneously which is what causes variability in outcome. Although the environment seems controlled, it is not. Our actual (versus artificial) intelligence varies from person to person, as will the respective results. And thus my Nobel Prize winning, bulletproof theory on why ALL personality traits were acquired. Correction: that WAS my bullet resistant hypothesis until one of my boys posed the 64 thousand dollar question; “What about curiosity?” Even newborn babies have a natural inclination to insert a metal fork into an electrical socket just to see what could happen. Who taught them that?” Shit! I had no retort for that one. Taking newly acquired information into account, I had to reevaluate and maybe even amend my stance (and for an acquired know-it-all, that is quite painful).

It can be quite cumbersome to first identify what makes you tick, then figure out what can or cannot be changed, and finally augment those personality traits that don’t work for you and probably everyone else around you (insert serenity prayer here). I personally am forever rooted in the “What chu talkin’ ‘bout Mr. Drummond?” phase of my life. This constant state of questioning / awareness can be quite unnerving mainly because I have not accepted the next stage of growth – ACTION. Whoa now. Baby steps Crazed Afrykan, baby steps.

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