“You seem to be everywhere online,” my friend Eric said to me a few days ago after taking the plunge of creating a long overdue Facebook account for himself.
I really didn’t think about it until he said it. But as of late I have been, to the point where I was offered a writing gig because of this particular blog. (Although I haven’t done that many entries in this blog in comparison to my old blogs brought here from my old page, I have received emails from several people that like how I put my thoughts down. As a writer, I take that as a HUGE compliment because as an Average Joe Some, I always feel like my thoughts are forever erratic on page. Even more so on this since I pretty much write everything from the top of my head hence the blog title and bio.)
At any rate, I am making my prescence known online
Why is this remotely a big deal? Aren’t you online and a billion others online as well? Hell, for anyone to read what I wrote had to be in some way a member of the online community?
To answer Question 1: No
Question 2: Yes
Question 3: Yes
To know me is to know that I am the least tech savvy person you will ever meet.
I am a typist. Not so much a web head that can do almost everything imaginable under the sun other than generic web browsing, and even that is restrained by the proverbial leash around my neck to keep me inside of the ground-deep fence surrounding my virtual backyard. Mostly because of my lack of concentration in this wide open word to research things that will be relevant to me in the far off future like retirement planning and annuity plans.
I mentioned this in a previous entry that my turnaround came about where a family member hit me up on Facebook after a year or more of having the account. Beforehand I pretty much converse with an old coworker and an old girlfriend once every six months. After that though, I got a revelation. I thought it would be a great idea to connect with people from the past and present (hence the reason for the entire website, I know!). Well, last month, with all this connecting with I thought I would reach out to people that I admired within the realms of the arts (any) and various other communities I am apart of.
I have to admit that I n ever put much stock in the Six Degrees of Separation Theory until I came across people I knew who knew people that I have admired and respected from afar for many years along with people who are like me, striving beyond themselves to make a conscious effort to get where they need to go, to make their mark on society. Which for me brings much needed relief in the cold psychological world of only black and only white; only half and only have not; leaving virtual no room (or rather no showing) of the gray or the aspiring (other than some reality show, and even this it is quite questionable how much they done on their own).
Saying all that, it is amazing to me that I went from just sending off emails to connecting my Facebook with my Twitter with my blog; my ISeeColor account with my TraderPlanet account,etc in just a few weeks. With my motivation being that I might can use my many networking connections in the near future. And even with that being said, I’m still in the slow lane because I am not married to a Crackberry (Blackberry or BarackBerry) or a Kickstand (Sidekick) or a IPhone.
So wish me luck as I try to find a car that will let me move further over into the far left lane.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Update--March
In my sad attempt to keep all the wheels spinning on my many internet accounts I have neglected my blog.
Quiet frankly, I hadn’t even given it a second thought.
Originally I thought I would be able to put in some more entries onto my blog along with catching up on some serious reading.
But to no avail.
Not a single book I had put on my blog last time I was able to get to.
I got so caught up playing on my Facebook account it wasn’t even funny.
I’ve had the account since the latter part of ’07, but either forgot the password or had no one ot talk to except an old coworker and an old girlfriend. Then, one day, late last month, my cousin hit me up out of the blue and I got an epiphany, and started to look up old childhood friends and family, etc. From there I thought it would be a great marketing tool to promote my novel that I had been planning to write since forever. Even thought the economy is in the crapper, I was imp0ressed by my very successful group of friends and family and decided to take the month of March to write my heart out.
My goal was to have completed the rough draft by the end of the month, I just started to cusp the middle of the novel just barely getting to the foothills of climbing up to the zenith.
Something I have been updating frequently on Facebook (inspirational quote mostly to keep me motivated) and Twitter (actual events and placement on novel), which oddly have kept me focus because somebody is bound to ask how are you doing on such-and-such a project. And althought it took me about a month to get in the vicinity of the middle of the manuscript, I think it will be flying from here on out.
So feel free to wish me luck!
Though an agent and a publishing deal will be extremely helpful!!!!
Hey, it works for the singers and stuff on YouTube.
Oh, by the way, I have set up several test games at my local library to try out a rough version of my board game. I haven’t a clue yet on how to pay for the graphic upgrade or the patent (and lawyer), but I am optimistic that it something will come together and work.
And I’m not going to lie. I probably won’t come back with any real blog entries until June, hopefully May at the earliest bringing a nice surprise. My newest dilemma is that after I write my rough draft I have to turn back around and write my play for this contest.
Oh, shit! Never mind!!!!
I misread the date!!!! It was due last month with the announcement in the summer.
Usually, I would be pissed about making such a grave error (and I am kind of kicking myself right now about it because I copied down the wrong date in all of my calendars online and off), but it gives me plenty of time to flesh out a more meaningful story as well as give me the freedom to focus on the story at hand.
I told you that I was becoming an eternal optimist!!!
What does that mean for my blog?
I can go back to my erotic novel and hopefully follow up on a two-year anniversary entry to my most popular blog Hanging with Hanging Pt. II In which I might be bold enough to direct the author of Hung (Scott Poulson-Bryant)to read since he is a friend of mine on Facebook.
Meanwhile, I have a lot to do with little time to spare.
Thank you for viewing as always.
Lata!
Quiet frankly, I hadn’t even given it a second thought.
Originally I thought I would be able to put in some more entries onto my blog along with catching up on some serious reading.
But to no avail.
Not a single book I had put on my blog last time I was able to get to.
I got so caught up playing on my Facebook account it wasn’t even funny.
I’ve had the account since the latter part of ’07, but either forgot the password or had no one ot talk to except an old coworker and an old girlfriend. Then, one day, late last month, my cousin hit me up out of the blue and I got an epiphany, and started to look up old childhood friends and family, etc. From there I thought it would be a great marketing tool to promote my novel that I had been planning to write since forever. Even thought the economy is in the crapper, I was imp0ressed by my very successful group of friends and family and decided to take the month of March to write my heart out.
My goal was to have completed the rough draft by the end of the month, I just started to cusp the middle of the novel just barely getting to the foothills of climbing up to the zenith.
Something I have been updating frequently on Facebook (inspirational quote mostly to keep me motivated) and Twitter (actual events and placement on novel), which oddly have kept me focus because somebody is bound to ask how are you doing on such-and-such a project. And althought it took me about a month to get in the vicinity of the middle of the manuscript, I think it will be flying from here on out.
So feel free to wish me luck!
Though an agent and a publishing deal will be extremely helpful!!!!
Hey, it works for the singers and stuff on YouTube.
Oh, by the way, I have set up several test games at my local library to try out a rough version of my board game. I haven’t a clue yet on how to pay for the graphic upgrade or the patent (and lawyer), but I am optimistic that it something will come together and work.
And I’m not going to lie. I probably won’t come back with any real blog entries until June, hopefully May at the earliest bringing a nice surprise. My newest dilemma is that after I write my rough draft I have to turn back around and write my play for this contest.
Oh, shit! Never mind!!!!
I misread the date!!!! It was due last month with the announcement in the summer.
Usually, I would be pissed about making such a grave error (and I am kind of kicking myself right now about it because I copied down the wrong date in all of my calendars online and off), but it gives me plenty of time to flesh out a more meaningful story as well as give me the freedom to focus on the story at hand.
I told you that I was becoming an eternal optimist!!!
What does that mean for my blog?
I can go back to my erotic novel and hopefully follow up on a two-year anniversary entry to my most popular blog Hanging with Hanging Pt. II In which I might be bold enough to direct the author of Hung (Scott Poulson-Bryant)to read since he is a friend of mine on Facebook.
Meanwhile, I have a lot to do with little time to spare.
Thank you for viewing as always.
Lata!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
UPDATE
I couldn't let the month of February pass without logging in at least one entry.
As I have been pressing and pumping hard to get these two novels out and getting this play ready to submit to another contest ready to block it for somethign that isn't so iconoclast, I have pretty much neglected many of my online social groups, from Ning (I love) to Socialgo (I tolerate) to my most recent add-ons that include ISeeColor ( I love the spirit of upliftedness and intellect) to TraderPlanet (I love for the infor and insight to the financial markets). This doesnot include my long ago abandonments of Facebook and MySpace. Perhaps, I am still haunted after all of these years by the rise and utter fall of BlackPlanet and BlackVoices, which I believe one is still in operation and the otehr merged with another social networked but still lack its initial appeal.
I have decided to take a short wirting break (which is a HUGE step for me seeing that I have written everday in some way, shape or forme since I was fifteen years old) and devote more time to get my boaard game out on the market via gaming firms, I am going to change ALL of my profile picsor at least those I remember signing up for. LOL
Although there is major dispute whether or not I am photogenic or not (I totally don't think I am), I have opted for a casual chic look. I figure this would be a nice small yet visible way of celbrating my small accomplishments thus far this year. Somethign I am ingraning into my routine this year--celbrating (or simply acknowledging) all accomplishments--from my most recent read of Sales Dogs by Brian Singer and The New Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles.
So, as we come into the month of March, I have vowered not to work on any major projects (with the exception of the play which is pretty much complete in rough draft form). I probably can't hold to my vow, but at least I have put that out there as a goal of mine that I want to accomplish--and celebrate later on.
Meanwhile, with getting my game ready which I have been working on since the very early part of 2007, seriously since 2008, I have decided ot catch up on some moreing reading.
As I have been pressing and pumping hard to get these two novels out and getting this play ready to submit to another contest ready to block it for somethign that isn't so iconoclast, I have pretty much neglected many of my online social groups, from Ning (I love) to Socialgo (I tolerate) to my most recent add-ons that include ISeeColor ( I love the spirit of upliftedness and intellect) to TraderPlanet (I love for the infor and insight to the financial markets). This doesnot include my long ago abandonments of Facebook and MySpace. Perhaps, I am still haunted after all of these years by the rise and utter fall of BlackPlanet and BlackVoices, which I believe one is still in operation and the otehr merged with another social networked but still lack its initial appeal.
I have decided to take a short wirting break (which is a HUGE step for me seeing that I have written everday in some way, shape or forme since I was fifteen years old) and devote more time to get my boaard game out on the market via gaming firms, I am going to change ALL of my profile picsor at least those I remember signing up for. LOL
Although there is major dispute whether or not I am photogenic or not (I totally don't think I am), I have opted for a casual chic look. I figure this would be a nice small yet visible way of celbrating my small accomplishments thus far this year. Somethign I am ingraning into my routine this year--celbrating (or simply acknowledging) all accomplishments--from my most recent read of Sales Dogs by Brian Singer and The New Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles.
So, as we come into the month of March, I have vowered not to work on any major projects (with the exception of the play which is pretty much complete in rough draft form). I probably can't hold to my vow, but at least I have put that out there as a goal of mine that I want to accomplish--and celebrate later on.
Meanwhile, with getting my game ready which I have been working on since the very early part of 2007, seriously since 2008, I have decided ot catch up on some moreing reading.
- Secrets of teh Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
- Beyond Wall Street: The Art of Investing by S.L. Mintz, Dana Dakin, and Thomas Willison
- The Craft of Investing by John Train
along with ACTUALLY playing with my practice Forex account that I've signed up for since God knows when.
Later.
P.S. Since I am on this little mini vacation, I promise to do better in place of my blog entries.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore????
It has come to my humble attention as of late that most of my friends have garnered the wrong impression about me. Since it has been a little over four years since I was last involved in a committed monogamous relationship, many of my friends have come to the brilliant conclusion that I had just give up on love.
That is absolutely not true.
Just because I don’t’ live behind “The Monogamy or Die” banner like some of my friends or try to build a relationship from a fuck, doesn’t mean that I don’t bleed like everyone else for love and companionship. It’s just that I never put myself out there emotionally like that just to build a so-called relationship with any old body just for the sake of being in a relationship.
I sort of kind of think of myself of a grand counter to two of my friends whom I considered the epitome of forging relationships out of nothing.
Unfortunately, one of my friends ended up loosing his life to AIDS because of his need to be in a relationship. Not to speak ill of the dead (because even today he was one of my greatest and truest friends) but he had an insatiable habit of building and destroying a relationship within a week. He would go to the club single, date when he got in, and usually was engaged by last call. Of course, because everything happened so suddenly they would have a long engagement that would last until the next night because the wedding and the honeymoon and the marriage would ensue. And after the last nutt was cracked, be it that they would have their sights set on someone else or they realized they had nothing outside of sex, the divorced is finalized when one calls the other gay (in the case of DL) or a flaming faggot (in the case of a sissy who don’t think they are a sissy.)
Now, my friend and I usually made a point to meet at least once or twice a week, if not more. But it took me about a good six month to figure out that my friend wasn’t talking about his past (considering we were just out of our teens), but the many events that had transpired between the last time we saw each other, the longest time being a week and the shortest time being a day.
So it kind of fucked with my head, being that my friend was so knowledgeable about diseases that somewhere between the minute he and his boyfriend/fiancé decided to become exclusive, he would make the decision to engage in unprotected sex, because “he” was the one.
In his defense, though, he did eventually find that one.
The two of them when on to have a lengthy, longstanding relationship that was filled with happiness and commitment but like anything else there relationship fell apart after a year and my friend ended up dying a year after that, still in the full swing of his old habits.
Unfortunately, because my friend was afraid of “poppa” preaching, or rather the feeling like a disappointment in my eyes (which I would never in a million years have thought), he informed friends that knew about his statist not to tell me until two years after the fact, making up a convincing lie that would spare me and his family.
My other friend is the sworn testimony to “Monogamy or Die.” To me, and I later found out, to himself also, below that he is nothing unless he has a man by his side. Ironically, I have a lot of friends like this, but he is only one of a handful of tops that I have as a friend that feel this way. And he will admit, much like my late friend, that it is the fear of being alone topped with self-esteem issues in a community that frankly make a big to do about nothing, from body image to education status, to clothes to cars because things come and go. Not only that those that perpetrate those things only have those things. Oftentimes, they don’t have any character or substance or self-worth about them because if they did they wouldn’t be around people they have to question on those things. Because at the end of the day, they would know we are all nothing more than flesh and blood.
Okay, I would’ve preached a little!
Back to my other friend.
Even he has to admit, he has stuck it out in relationship held together with spit, for the sake of avoiding loneliness, even going to the extreme of flying and bussing guys in and vice versa. But as he hinted to me over the years, he knows he isn’t the best looking thing in the bunch therefore he goes through these unnecessary extremes, which sometimes complicates our relationship because he feels that I chose to be single repelling guys and girls that are not bashful in wanting me while he feels like he has to look under every rock to find someone.
The sad truth is my friend is a really cool guy, very well educated, and very inquisitive. And though I don’t make a habit out of looking at my friends, he is not bad to look at, in the sense that neither he nor I will ever look like a Greek God. And not everybody wants a Greek God. (Ironically, when I was younger I walked away from a perfectly good guy because while I was incessant about my flaws, he loved every inch of me just the way I was because of them. What was wrong with him! (lol))
I say all of this because I have seen the paces people have put themselves through just to have some sort of validation in some faceless society, in some so-called relationship that they themselves are unsure that they want to be in.
As for me, though, being single ain’t bad. Especially, considering that I am making the most of my singlehood pursuing my dreams along with mending my recently wrecked financial house, threefold at the speed I would’ve had had I split my time between that and pacifying a relationship at this time.
But I will admit, it hasn’t always been happy being single, particularly when it comes to my coupling friends doing couple things. Which are also grander than when you just hang out with your usual group of friends, especially when they attend cultural events and such.
My content of being single really began at nineteen, right before my twentieth birthday. I had just gotten out of a year and a half relationship when I found myself in the thick of the Black Pride Weekend here in Atlanta. Because I had always been thick and masculine and love for my man to deliver the same, the parade of paper-thin sissies vogue-ing their way through the Renaissance on their way to the club did little to make my dick jump. But when I laid my eyes on this thick masculine dude, I was done! And since he lived in the area, I knew I was in there!
One problem: Unlike himself, he liked his men paper-thin and feminine. Because I always liked my dick and the testosterone that comes with it, I tried to starve myself to at least try to be thin. Then, a good friend of mine pulled me aside and told me to stop. I was too well feed to start looking like a Somali refugee. So I decided to go celibate, as a way to stand out.
About eight moths into my celibacy, it worked. Me and they guy became good friends, hanging out and everything. Then, as soon as he was ready to “try something different,” a friend of mine with extreme insecurity issues decided that he wanted to be with the guy. Now he had already disclosed that he wanted to be in a relationship with me, and now wanted to be with the guy. Being that my friend had slowed down considerably giving up to everyone with a hard dick, I decided to forego my dreams of being with the guy, much to our dismay.
But it turned out to be the best thing in the world because the guy I was pressing turned out to be very trifling, and my slutty friend, a year after the fact couldn’t even remember his name when he saw him!
So not only was I spared from a relationship that would’ve surely brought stress on my head, the main reason I spared it couldn’t even remover his name after he professed tahta he wanted to be with him. And that a so-called friend is stomping around pissed that I still won’t fuck him!
I can honestly laugh about it now. Back then, I was upset. Because by the time everything came to a head almost a year into my celibacy*, I wasn’t in the business of having sex again—at least not with just anybody. So I sat around about six months more until my dick was literally dripping with pre cum and a path juice ass was daring me to dick it down.
*Remember celibacy is when you have no sexual relations whatsoever including masturbation. Abstinence can include hand-to-dick combat.
I know I am rambling, but I say this because I took myself through hell and back (not the celibacy part) in trying to get a relationship that I almost lost myself in the process. I say almost because, in truth, I really didn’t know who I was. I mean, honestly was I the kind of dude that would go through changing my entire being just to get with a man whose type I originally didn’t bill in the first place?
Fortunately (and I say that loosely), I learned from my misstate, taking away the notion that I have to start off showing who I am first before seeing someone to share my life with, be it a generic relationship or a marriage without the legality—for now, because I want him—that man—to have a strong sense of character and know who he is as a man.
Even the events that folded four years ago with my last committed monogamous relationship and my ability to articulate it in full mass at the end of last year, I can’t sate being with someone because I make the happy when they do nothing for me.
What I mean by that is I’ve been with guys who were gung-ho about me or my dick. Yet, if it wasn’t for me pleasing them, it was really nothing in it for me. In some cases, not even horniness or a fantastic nutt.
I guess the major problem (not that I feel being single is a problem for me) is that either the men that I am attracted to (good-looking, thick solid men secure in their masculinity) don’t find me attractive, or my favorite, believe that my masculinity with his might leave society to question who does what in the bedroom. My other almost-always constant, is that I can be feeling a dude and that dude is feeling me. But his more-often-than-not insecure friend is feeling me, too. And when it comes to our friends, we want them to have to go through as little pain as possible, so they’ll push their friend up on me as a humble gesture. And for awhile I understood totally and completely, since I ended a possible relationship because of it. I soon realize none of that does any good if only one person is feeling something and the other isn’t.
So I made up my mind four years go that I didn’t want to be with somebody because it makes them happy or because I feared being alone or I feared that somebody in society was going to feel that I was less than because I was flying solo.
While I am happily singer for now working on my self (I already know a great deal about myself) and what I want out of my future, I want a real relationship someday. I want to truly get to know someone, with the hopes if we have enough in common, in spite of our differences, we can building something strong upon. Love. Respect. Trust. Monogamy. Faith. Loyalty. Finance. A life—two into one.
Shit, I’m not going to lie, I want to fall deep in love and have the same love reciprocated, and make love with our clothes on just being in the same room together, be it kicking it with friend or sleeping in the bed together.
Now I believe that I am emotionally mature enough to know that that ain’t about to happen with just some random dude that will cure me of some loneliness, as I know that he isn’t likely bound to show up until just shy of when I feel I am able to receive him.
So with that, I am happy and single, knowing that I can’t give or receive the kind of genuine love that comes with a relationship until I got my shit together in the sense that I am able to give and receive that love back.
So I can sit my happy-ass down and be patient, listen to my friends complain how there aren’t any good men out there in the world. Then I happened to look at the relationship they have with themselves and they forged with others and it makes me sort of glad that I am broke (for the time being) so that I can plan my line of defense. More importantly, enjoy worrying about my feeling without having to worry about my future partner’s.
That is absolutely not true.
Just because I don’t’ live behind “The Monogamy or Die” banner like some of my friends or try to build a relationship from a fuck, doesn’t mean that I don’t bleed like everyone else for love and companionship. It’s just that I never put myself out there emotionally like that just to build a so-called relationship with any old body just for the sake of being in a relationship.
I sort of kind of think of myself of a grand counter to two of my friends whom I considered the epitome of forging relationships out of nothing.
Unfortunately, one of my friends ended up loosing his life to AIDS because of his need to be in a relationship. Not to speak ill of the dead (because even today he was one of my greatest and truest friends) but he had an insatiable habit of building and destroying a relationship within a week. He would go to the club single, date when he got in, and usually was engaged by last call. Of course, because everything happened so suddenly they would have a long engagement that would last until the next night because the wedding and the honeymoon and the marriage would ensue. And after the last nutt was cracked, be it that they would have their sights set on someone else or they realized they had nothing outside of sex, the divorced is finalized when one calls the other gay (in the case of DL) or a flaming faggot (in the case of a sissy who don’t think they are a sissy.)
Now, my friend and I usually made a point to meet at least once or twice a week, if not more. But it took me about a good six month to figure out that my friend wasn’t talking about his past (considering we were just out of our teens), but the many events that had transpired between the last time we saw each other, the longest time being a week and the shortest time being a day.
So it kind of fucked with my head, being that my friend was so knowledgeable about diseases that somewhere between the minute he and his boyfriend/fiancé decided to become exclusive, he would make the decision to engage in unprotected sex, because “he” was the one.
In his defense, though, he did eventually find that one.
The two of them when on to have a lengthy, longstanding relationship that was filled with happiness and commitment but like anything else there relationship fell apart after a year and my friend ended up dying a year after that, still in the full swing of his old habits.
Unfortunately, because my friend was afraid of “poppa” preaching, or rather the feeling like a disappointment in my eyes (which I would never in a million years have thought), he informed friends that knew about his statist not to tell me until two years after the fact, making up a convincing lie that would spare me and his family.
My other friend is the sworn testimony to “Monogamy or Die.” To me, and I later found out, to himself also, below that he is nothing unless he has a man by his side. Ironically, I have a lot of friends like this, but he is only one of a handful of tops that I have as a friend that feel this way. And he will admit, much like my late friend, that it is the fear of being alone topped with self-esteem issues in a community that frankly make a big to do about nothing, from body image to education status, to clothes to cars because things come and go. Not only that those that perpetrate those things only have those things. Oftentimes, they don’t have any character or substance or self-worth about them because if they did they wouldn’t be around people they have to question on those things. Because at the end of the day, they would know we are all nothing more than flesh and blood.
Okay, I would’ve preached a little!
Back to my other friend.
Even he has to admit, he has stuck it out in relationship held together with spit, for the sake of avoiding loneliness, even going to the extreme of flying and bussing guys in and vice versa. But as he hinted to me over the years, he knows he isn’t the best looking thing in the bunch therefore he goes through these unnecessary extremes, which sometimes complicates our relationship because he feels that I chose to be single repelling guys and girls that are not bashful in wanting me while he feels like he has to look under every rock to find someone.
The sad truth is my friend is a really cool guy, very well educated, and very inquisitive. And though I don’t make a habit out of looking at my friends, he is not bad to look at, in the sense that neither he nor I will ever look like a Greek God. And not everybody wants a Greek God. (Ironically, when I was younger I walked away from a perfectly good guy because while I was incessant about my flaws, he loved every inch of me just the way I was because of them. What was wrong with him! (lol))
I say all of this because I have seen the paces people have put themselves through just to have some sort of validation in some faceless society, in some so-called relationship that they themselves are unsure that they want to be in.
As for me, though, being single ain’t bad. Especially, considering that I am making the most of my singlehood pursuing my dreams along with mending my recently wrecked financial house, threefold at the speed I would’ve had had I split my time between that and pacifying a relationship at this time.
But I will admit, it hasn’t always been happy being single, particularly when it comes to my coupling friends doing couple things. Which are also grander than when you just hang out with your usual group of friends, especially when they attend cultural events and such.
My content of being single really began at nineteen, right before my twentieth birthday. I had just gotten out of a year and a half relationship when I found myself in the thick of the Black Pride Weekend here in Atlanta. Because I had always been thick and masculine and love for my man to deliver the same, the parade of paper-thin sissies vogue-ing their way through the Renaissance on their way to the club did little to make my dick jump. But when I laid my eyes on this thick masculine dude, I was done! And since he lived in the area, I knew I was in there!
One problem: Unlike himself, he liked his men paper-thin and feminine. Because I always liked my dick and the testosterone that comes with it, I tried to starve myself to at least try to be thin. Then, a good friend of mine pulled me aside and told me to stop. I was too well feed to start looking like a Somali refugee. So I decided to go celibate, as a way to stand out.
About eight moths into my celibacy, it worked. Me and they guy became good friends, hanging out and everything. Then, as soon as he was ready to “try something different,” a friend of mine with extreme insecurity issues decided that he wanted to be with the guy. Now he had already disclosed that he wanted to be in a relationship with me, and now wanted to be with the guy. Being that my friend had slowed down considerably giving up to everyone with a hard dick, I decided to forego my dreams of being with the guy, much to our dismay.
But it turned out to be the best thing in the world because the guy I was pressing turned out to be very trifling, and my slutty friend, a year after the fact couldn’t even remember his name when he saw him!
So not only was I spared from a relationship that would’ve surely brought stress on my head, the main reason I spared it couldn’t even remover his name after he professed tahta he wanted to be with him. And that a so-called friend is stomping around pissed that I still won’t fuck him!
I can honestly laugh about it now. Back then, I was upset. Because by the time everything came to a head almost a year into my celibacy*, I wasn’t in the business of having sex again—at least not with just anybody. So I sat around about six months more until my dick was literally dripping with pre cum and a path juice ass was daring me to dick it down.
*Remember celibacy is when you have no sexual relations whatsoever including masturbation. Abstinence can include hand-to-dick combat.
I know I am rambling, but I say this because I took myself through hell and back (not the celibacy part) in trying to get a relationship that I almost lost myself in the process. I say almost because, in truth, I really didn’t know who I was. I mean, honestly was I the kind of dude that would go through changing my entire being just to get with a man whose type I originally didn’t bill in the first place?
Fortunately (and I say that loosely), I learned from my misstate, taking away the notion that I have to start off showing who I am first before seeing someone to share my life with, be it a generic relationship or a marriage without the legality—for now, because I want him—that man—to have a strong sense of character and know who he is as a man.
Even the events that folded four years ago with my last committed monogamous relationship and my ability to articulate it in full mass at the end of last year, I can’t sate being with someone because I make the happy when they do nothing for me.
What I mean by that is I’ve been with guys who were gung-ho about me or my dick. Yet, if it wasn’t for me pleasing them, it was really nothing in it for me. In some cases, not even horniness or a fantastic nutt.
I guess the major problem (not that I feel being single is a problem for me) is that either the men that I am attracted to (good-looking, thick solid men secure in their masculinity) don’t find me attractive, or my favorite, believe that my masculinity with his might leave society to question who does what in the bedroom. My other almost-always constant, is that I can be feeling a dude and that dude is feeling me. But his more-often-than-not insecure friend is feeling me, too. And when it comes to our friends, we want them to have to go through as little pain as possible, so they’ll push their friend up on me as a humble gesture. And for awhile I understood totally and completely, since I ended a possible relationship because of it. I soon realize none of that does any good if only one person is feeling something and the other isn’t.
So I made up my mind four years go that I didn’t want to be with somebody because it makes them happy or because I feared being alone or I feared that somebody in society was going to feel that I was less than because I was flying solo.
While I am happily singer for now working on my self (I already know a great deal about myself) and what I want out of my future, I want a real relationship someday. I want to truly get to know someone, with the hopes if we have enough in common, in spite of our differences, we can building something strong upon. Love. Respect. Trust. Monogamy. Faith. Loyalty. Finance. A life—two into one.
Shit, I’m not going to lie, I want to fall deep in love and have the same love reciprocated, and make love with our clothes on just being in the same room together, be it kicking it with friend or sleeping in the bed together.
Now I believe that I am emotionally mature enough to know that that ain’t about to happen with just some random dude that will cure me of some loneliness, as I know that he isn’t likely bound to show up until just shy of when I feel I am able to receive him.
So with that, I am happy and single, knowing that I can’t give or receive the kind of genuine love that comes with a relationship until I got my shit together in the sense that I am able to give and receive that love back.
So I can sit my happy-ass down and be patient, listen to my friends complain how there aren’t any good men out there in the world. Then I happened to look at the relationship they have with themselves and they forged with others and it makes me sort of glad that I am broke (for the time being) so that I can plan my line of defense. More importantly, enjoy worrying about my feeling without having to worry about my future partner’s.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A New Year's Resolution
As most people have begun floundering on their New Year’s Resolution, I decided to take the alternative route by taking the first 14 days of the New Year of the New Years to gauge exactly where I am and where I want to be throughout the course of this year.
Like most Americans I want to get my financial house in order. And like some American I have included spiritual enlightenment (after spending way too long being mad at God for my own shortcomings) and emotional growth (as a significant co-signer) to my lists. On top of those things I decided to get back to the core of my writing.
While I have spent the last three years writing now more than ever, most of my energy has been going to my erotic writings including an upcoming anthology followed by a novel under my pseudonym. In the process of getting paid pennies on the dollar for these works, I have neglected writings under my own name and vowed to get a novel published surrounding my teenage years, which I hope will be an entertaining journey for most while being a sobering truth to coming into my sexuality.
Speaking of sexuality, I have decided to suspend my bisexuality (can he do that?), in the sense that while I am equally attracted to men as I am women, I decided that this will be the year that I explore my surrounding myself with more mature, masculine men of color who are content in their same gender-loving skin. I don’t mean that to be in a sexual way as much as I want to pursue it in a social way. And that doesn’t mean that I am going to give up my association of sexual bravado with women, as it means that I am not going to purposefully go back and forth between the sexes.
Although, I have been always open with my bisexuality, I had started to for a nasty habit of getting frustrated with one sex and run to the other. Women wanting a committed relationship because of sex and men for the same reason, too, along with men who want sex with no strings attached.
Besides, as I go into my ninth year of being out (bisexual and gay), I have met a group of masculine men, online and off, that has given me hope (in the social arena) that there are men (gay or bi) that can acknowledge that they get down with other men and still have the power to hold their own dicks (or scratch their asses) like a man. And I would love to surround myself with that energy, or at least get to know it before I become jaded with the whole community.
As for sex however, I decided to rein that part in just a little bit. Not that I was all that wild-out (or as wild as I though I was or wanted to be), but because I have become a little bit more conscientious that I will become a little bit selfish this year when it comes to sex, be it men or women, in the sense that I will make more of a consorted effort to be satisfied first, and in the process ensure that my partner, too, is satisfied. Throughout the course of my sex life, I had always operated vice versa, satisfying my partner and deriving my pleasure from their pleasure.
Another thing I decided to do is only have sex, with others or myself unless I am horny as hell.
What I mean by that is my dick can and will get hard at the gentle gust of the wind, but my hormones aren’t in it. Or, I might feel like I have a booty call that I hadn’t hit up in a while, and just so they don’t feel like I forgot about them I roll on a condom and roll on through.
Not literally—well…
And to let everyone know how serious I am, I just recently passed up the grand opportunity to plug up a phat juice ass—dude even made a video for me to roll through!!! It was very hot and tempting, but it required me to put on my clothes while I was so comfortable in my bed.
The verdict is still out on whether I will or will not let someone up in my booty. January of next year would be the ten year anniversary since I let the first and second guy put a dick up this ass. (I was seventeen, and not versed in the top/bottom thing as much as it was whether or not I was gay or not followed by a year and a half relationship I was in, with my partner only preferred performing oral.)
It’s not that I’m all that worried about being turned out (thought I really doubt half these punks really thought they would spend half of their lives looking for a dick fix), as it has been that I haven’t found that brotha to do that to me again.
Well, that isn’t exactly true—but I will explain later.
At any rate, I am unsure if I want to be in a relationship with the first dude that “re-enters the dragon”. On, one hand, I do, if for nothing more than the understanding and the patience that comes with a relationship that you can’t get with a fuck buddy. But, on the same token, I would hate to give up a couple of rounds of ass to my boyfriend, and feels like he’s good after busting his nutt.
I mean, would I have waited nine years just for that?
Or maybe it’s my own past coming to play of the countless bottoms I’ve fucked who wanted to build a relationship off of my dick going up their asses. Perhaps, that gets the best of my psyche.
That…and finding a dude I am feeling that I would allow to do that to me.
But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it though. From the videos to the people that let me roam around their insides, I think about the many reactions and play in wonderment.
At the very beginning of the year, I had the esteemed pleasure of watching a dude get fucked at a sex party. While this usually appealed to my voyeuristic nature, I actually paid close attention to the bottom lying beside my knees, from his composure to his breathing as his top plowed into him with phrases of dirty talk that I could use on my own future conquests.
While I am still on the fence on the whole bottoming thing, I have met the man that I wouldn’t mind doing it to me. To know me is to know that I don’t easily get excited over a guy, regardless of his looks or actions. So for me to have a non-nutt orgasm come from my dick and deep inside my almost virgin ass said a lot, especially since I always keep the perspective that all of us are nothing more than just flesh and blood. And even though I have not doubt that he is a Casanova (I went back right?), I can’t resist being attracted to him—even if he doesn’t know I’m alive or have a boyfriend or a stalker or whatever! Even if he were to know that I existed and I was ready to do the damn thing—one major problem
His dick.
It would be just my luck that my big, thick chocolate dream would have a dick that is large and mythical as the Great Loch Ness Monster.
While I understand, from conversation that I have had with one of my best friends who used to be a celebrated bottom before settling down in a relationship that I am likely to break even with the ratio of thick black men with matching dicks with those that fall below average, I greatly fear this image of being lead around the room head first with a great big dick skewered up my tender ass.
Sure, it sounds like a blast, but for whom?
I mean, really, I enjoy the simple things in life like sitting down and holding my shit in. And it wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the first dick I took being relatively big—like black man average—as I later learned. But back then I was looking to define my sexual orientation through sex rather than enjoying or wincing at the experience for what it was.
And, yet, I catch the irony that size queens everywhere wish to have my problem.
Still, though, in spite of hesitation “Mind over Glorious Matter” flashes through my head as he, over the past couple of months, have played a crucial part of my jack-off fantasies.
Let me stop before—it’s too damn late.
But like I said before this year I am getting back to the core of my writing which is more commercial than literary and more indecent than erotic.
Okay, that will not change—because whether I want to admit or not, my fantasy friend has been helpful in cranking out these books, which I mentioned earlier due to the publisher later on this month.
Meanwhile, I believe in these resolutions of the New Year to be better that I want to be, I started the year of making it out of the Five Points Train Station twelve minutes before the Peach Drop at Underground [Atlanta], which I got inside just in time for the countdown and the fireworks, I found fifty dollars catching the train to a sex party where I received the best head ever while two other dudes sucked on my nipples, and for the very first time in my life I got my ass eaten out by the dude that was fucking the bottom I was paying attention to.
Please, don’t get the impression that this blog—my new blog—is nothing more than sexual exploits and fantasies because I want to keep this thing about whatever is going on in my life, from opinions to facts to whatever as I plan on using this blog to keep me on true to my core writing.
Oh, by the way, don’t’ be surprise that some of the other blog entries are dated, as I have attempted to bring my old and new together.
Like most Americans I want to get my financial house in order. And like some American I have included spiritual enlightenment (after spending way too long being mad at God for my own shortcomings) and emotional growth (as a significant co-signer) to my lists. On top of those things I decided to get back to the core of my writing.
While I have spent the last three years writing now more than ever, most of my energy has been going to my erotic writings including an upcoming anthology followed by a novel under my pseudonym. In the process of getting paid pennies on the dollar for these works, I have neglected writings under my own name and vowed to get a novel published surrounding my teenage years, which I hope will be an entertaining journey for most while being a sobering truth to coming into my sexuality.
Speaking of sexuality, I have decided to suspend my bisexuality (can he do that?), in the sense that while I am equally attracted to men as I am women, I decided that this will be the year that I explore my surrounding myself with more mature, masculine men of color who are content in their same gender-loving skin. I don’t mean that to be in a sexual way as much as I want to pursue it in a social way. And that doesn’t mean that I am going to give up my association of sexual bravado with women, as it means that I am not going to purposefully go back and forth between the sexes.
Although, I have been always open with my bisexuality, I had started to for a nasty habit of getting frustrated with one sex and run to the other. Women wanting a committed relationship because of sex and men for the same reason, too, along with men who want sex with no strings attached.
Besides, as I go into my ninth year of being out (bisexual and gay), I have met a group of masculine men, online and off, that has given me hope (in the social arena) that there are men (gay or bi) that can acknowledge that they get down with other men and still have the power to hold their own dicks (or scratch their asses) like a man. And I would love to surround myself with that energy, or at least get to know it before I become jaded with the whole community.
As for sex however, I decided to rein that part in just a little bit. Not that I was all that wild-out (or as wild as I though I was or wanted to be), but because I have become a little bit more conscientious that I will become a little bit selfish this year when it comes to sex, be it men or women, in the sense that I will make more of a consorted effort to be satisfied first, and in the process ensure that my partner, too, is satisfied. Throughout the course of my sex life, I had always operated vice versa, satisfying my partner and deriving my pleasure from their pleasure.
Another thing I decided to do is only have sex, with others or myself unless I am horny as hell.
What I mean by that is my dick can and will get hard at the gentle gust of the wind, but my hormones aren’t in it. Or, I might feel like I have a booty call that I hadn’t hit up in a while, and just so they don’t feel like I forgot about them I roll on a condom and roll on through.
Not literally—well…
And to let everyone know how serious I am, I just recently passed up the grand opportunity to plug up a phat juice ass—dude even made a video for me to roll through!!! It was very hot and tempting, but it required me to put on my clothes while I was so comfortable in my bed.
The verdict is still out on whether I will or will not let someone up in my booty. January of next year would be the ten year anniversary since I let the first and second guy put a dick up this ass. (I was seventeen, and not versed in the top/bottom thing as much as it was whether or not I was gay or not followed by a year and a half relationship I was in, with my partner only preferred performing oral.)
It’s not that I’m all that worried about being turned out (thought I really doubt half these punks really thought they would spend half of their lives looking for a dick fix), as it has been that I haven’t found that brotha to do that to me again.
Well, that isn’t exactly true—but I will explain later.
At any rate, I am unsure if I want to be in a relationship with the first dude that “re-enters the dragon”. On, one hand, I do, if for nothing more than the understanding and the patience that comes with a relationship that you can’t get with a fuck buddy. But, on the same token, I would hate to give up a couple of rounds of ass to my boyfriend, and feels like he’s good after busting his nutt.
I mean, would I have waited nine years just for that?
Or maybe it’s my own past coming to play of the countless bottoms I’ve fucked who wanted to build a relationship off of my dick going up their asses. Perhaps, that gets the best of my psyche.
That…and finding a dude I am feeling that I would allow to do that to me.
But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it though. From the videos to the people that let me roam around their insides, I think about the many reactions and play in wonderment.
At the very beginning of the year, I had the esteemed pleasure of watching a dude get fucked at a sex party. While this usually appealed to my voyeuristic nature, I actually paid close attention to the bottom lying beside my knees, from his composure to his breathing as his top plowed into him with phrases of dirty talk that I could use on my own future conquests.
While I am still on the fence on the whole bottoming thing, I have met the man that I wouldn’t mind doing it to me. To know me is to know that I don’t easily get excited over a guy, regardless of his looks or actions. So for me to have a non-nutt orgasm come from my dick and deep inside my almost virgin ass said a lot, especially since I always keep the perspective that all of us are nothing more than just flesh and blood. And even though I have not doubt that he is a Casanova (I went back right?), I can’t resist being attracted to him—even if he doesn’t know I’m alive or have a boyfriend or a stalker or whatever! Even if he were to know that I existed and I was ready to do the damn thing—one major problem
His dick.
It would be just my luck that my big, thick chocolate dream would have a dick that is large and mythical as the Great Loch Ness Monster.
While I understand, from conversation that I have had with one of my best friends who used to be a celebrated bottom before settling down in a relationship that I am likely to break even with the ratio of thick black men with matching dicks with those that fall below average, I greatly fear this image of being lead around the room head first with a great big dick skewered up my tender ass.
Sure, it sounds like a blast, but for whom?
I mean, really, I enjoy the simple things in life like sitting down and holding my shit in. And it wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the first dick I took being relatively big—like black man average—as I later learned. But back then I was looking to define my sexual orientation through sex rather than enjoying or wincing at the experience for what it was.
And, yet, I catch the irony that size queens everywhere wish to have my problem.
Still, though, in spite of hesitation “Mind over Glorious Matter” flashes through my head as he, over the past couple of months, have played a crucial part of my jack-off fantasies.
Let me stop before—it’s too damn late.
But like I said before this year I am getting back to the core of my writing which is more commercial than literary and more indecent than erotic.
Okay, that will not change—because whether I want to admit or not, my fantasy friend has been helpful in cranking out these books, which I mentioned earlier due to the publisher later on this month.
Meanwhile, I believe in these resolutions of the New Year to be better that I want to be, I started the year of making it out of the Five Points Train Station twelve minutes before the Peach Drop at Underground [Atlanta], which I got inside just in time for the countdown and the fireworks, I found fifty dollars catching the train to a sex party where I received the best head ever while two other dudes sucked on my nipples, and for the very first time in my life I got my ass eaten out by the dude that was fucking the bottom I was paying attention to.
Please, don’t get the impression that this blog—my new blog—is nothing more than sexual exploits and fantasies because I want to keep this thing about whatever is going on in my life, from opinions to facts to whatever as I plan on using this blog to keep me on true to my core writing.
Oh, by the way, don’t’ be surprise that some of the other blog entries are dated, as I have attempted to bring my old and new together.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Barack on Hunter Street
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 11, 2006
As one of the few Atlanta natives still living in Atlanta, I often tell people that I come across that there is a world of difference between Atlanta and Georgia. That is to say that pretty much everything from a political to a social to a cultural to whatever else there is a stark difference between the City of Atlanta and its adjoining metropolitan area against the backdrop of the entire State of Georgia, give or take a few progressive municipalities.
As I finally steady my elation to write this a full week and a few days after the election, which ensured Barack Obama into his current post of President-Elect to become the 44th President of the United States of America on January 20, 2009 (I know you know all of this, but I never thought writing it all out would feel so good), I happened to think about the story of Hunter Street here in Atlanta, in my new found cornerstone of American pride.
Before every major street in practically every corner of this nation named itself after the late great Martin Luther King Jr., Hunter Street in Atlanta, a street that leaves from the western wall of Oakland Cemetery in the east pass the State Capitol Building through downtown on westward to the Chattahoochee River, was one of the first to change its name to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, a few years after the assassination of the Civil Rights leader. And although, at that particular time, many of the whites living in town where exiting to suburbia (in response to many of the Blacks moving into the city for opportunities that were disappearing in the rural areas), the symbolic gesture to name one of the longest streets after its black native son forever solidified the wary change in Atlanta with an unbeknownst ripple effect throughout the nation, and perhaps the world.
I say this because, as Atlanta was known throughout the South as the city “too busy to hate,” it certainly showed its prejudices when a great numbers of white, at the time, couldn’t bare the thought of living in a city that “glorified” a black man in such a manner or even live or work on a street in that same context. Or, even as I have heard later, a symbolic gesture that would forever define Atlanta as the home of the Civil Rights leader by having his name run from the horizons across the city, from sunrise to sunset, ultimately defining the city in no way that it had ever been defined before. But while I truly believe those were the fears for some, I honestly believe that the fear of change so quickly got the best of most, in oppose to those other prejudices.
I cannot speak about other places in depth, because my experiences in living in other places haven’t been that vast, but I can say that growing up here in Atlanta (most areas in the city limits being primarily black before the Olympics, long before inheriting the official “Black Mecca” moniker), I never really thought about the story of Hunter Street in depth, something that my mother would share from time to time when she was reflecting upon the changes she and my father have seen since their arrival from the rural stretches of the northern part of Middle Georgia. For one, it was a full decade plus before my time. And secondly, because I was only surrounded by faces similar to my own for so long that I honestly never gave much credence to the plight of the other races for various reasons, ranging from being a minority majority in a city that was “too busy” to truly acknowledge their was a cultural shift or a social turmoil until later years, to understanding that I was still a minority in the Deep South every time I left the comforts of home, traveling through places where my family and I often got mean-mugged for not knowing that it was still socially polite to bow our head in the presence of certain so-called self-proclaimed superiors instead of looking at them as equals.
But the fact that most of that changed once the City was awarded to host the Centennial Olympic Games in 1996 and continued to have a more significant if not a more resonating presence long after the fact with gentrification, or more commonly known here as “white flight” back into the city. Truly putting to the test whether or not we can harmonize no only as a city but build together as a community of diverse neighborhood (before the housing meltdown) started to look more like a checkerboard rather than a big ol’ pot of gray.
By now, either some of you got where I am going with this while most of you are probably wondering what the title of this blog has to do with any of this that I have wrote. It is all to say that once or twice again we face with the enviable question:
Not can we brace for change, but can we embrace each other in change?
I first take the opportunity to reflect on this question on my own conscious, thinking back on my own happiness and upsets in change, especially in the gentrification process here in Atlanta, and how it forever changed the landscape of everything I once love and knew (and other things being a two-way split between “good riddance” and something I was really indifferent to but simply gotten use to seeing or feeling). These thing go from shopping in the old Rich’s building downtown to the way Lenox Mall used to look before it got all uppity (with Houlihan’s being the only main attraction beside the movie theatre) to the implosion of the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and the fairs that used to be held in the parking lot across the street (now Turner Field); I think about Lakewood Freeway becoming Langford Parkway; Butler Street becoming Jesse Hill Jr. Drive (which I still think was stupid because of my constant want to say Butler Street whenever someone ask for directions to go there being that I have been here most of my life); Hightower becoming H.E. Homes, both road and train station; Bankhead—Hollowell; Simpson—Boone; so on and so forth. I think about the changing of the established neighborhoods getting a breath of fresh air, be it good or bad, and many of the things that were pretty much given up on of ever stepping foot inside of the Perimeter again did. Even as large as that, even things as minute as my two struggling elementary school alma maters coming together to create a super academy, in same spot corporate sponsors had to come in years earlier to save a school that was on the verge of closing its doors.
But as I think about those countless things that have changed faces or disappeared or recently came onto the scene, I think about the changes that have always been apart of us. I especially think back to the elementary school that I really wanted to go to and its closing its doors a couple of years later. And as I pass by the building (which it still stand to be converted into lofts) almost every other day, I don’t think about that that much. Nor do I think about the old high school (before my time) that sat atop the hill now converted into lofts.
Because in many respects they have always been apart of us, just changed the purpose or even as slight as changing the name.
I stress all of this nostalgic stuff because I know that as America move in a “fundamentally new direction” it is nothing more than a PC way of saying a “change” is going to come something that most people are afraid of when they know it is coming and something that just became apart of the fabric when it transpired.
And as we have seen a seismic shift in our country, from the preconceived notions that we (once?) had about race or the capability one person with the help of legions behind him can accomplish, I take not and bear witness to the change people hunger for and the drive people have to help him and themselves to, dare I be so bold to say it, to make a change that will ultimate heal many of the wedges that somehow made us forget that at the end of the day that all of us pretty much strive for humanity, in spite of our many differences.
In this however, I take not, on the other side of the aisle. And I am not talking about politics (because most of my respected Republican friends, mostly white and some black, knew that his change was destine to come because of the many failures and short-sightedness of the current administration), but rather those that fear change, be it good or bad, because of the uncertainty that it wielded.
Like I said before, most are afraid of change. Some simply because it is different. Others because it really put to the test and challenge their ignorance, from the person who thought someone was less than because of the variant color of their skin to the child who was brought to believe they were less than by their own family, even though their skin pigmentation mimics that of their parents. There is also a group of people as one of my liberated white friend s put it, particularly amongst those that are old enough to remember “the way it used to be,” and fear retribution from the pains inflicted by their ancestors and in some cases themselves have come home to roost. Keep in mind also there are still some alive that are still reeling from the imprint that the Civil Rights movement has put on this country.
And while I would love to challenge all those thoughts and processes, for whatever merit they stand on, I have to be mindful (we have to be mindful) that we are barely a generation or two away from the grips of Jim Crow and the chains of slavery that it is attached to.
So as I get used to the idea of change, and the hop it promises for a better day, be it whatever that is to you. I also have to go back to that time on Hunter Street, where it all started out with nothing more than the change of a name followed by the change of everything…hopefully in the spec for the better.
As one of the few Atlanta natives still living in Atlanta, I often tell people that I come across that there is a world of difference between Atlanta and Georgia. That is to say that pretty much everything from a political to a social to a cultural to whatever else there is a stark difference between the City of Atlanta and its adjoining metropolitan area against the backdrop of the entire State of Georgia, give or take a few progressive municipalities.
As I finally steady my elation to write this a full week and a few days after the election, which ensured Barack Obama into his current post of President-Elect to become the 44th President of the United States of America on January 20, 2009 (I know you know all of this, but I never thought writing it all out would feel so good), I happened to think about the story of Hunter Street here in Atlanta, in my new found cornerstone of American pride.
Before every major street in practically every corner of this nation named itself after the late great Martin Luther King Jr., Hunter Street in Atlanta, a street that leaves from the western wall of Oakland Cemetery in the east pass the State Capitol Building through downtown on westward to the Chattahoochee River, was one of the first to change its name to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, a few years after the assassination of the Civil Rights leader. And although, at that particular time, many of the whites living in town where exiting to suburbia (in response to many of the Blacks moving into the city for opportunities that were disappearing in the rural areas), the symbolic gesture to name one of the longest streets after its black native son forever solidified the wary change in Atlanta with an unbeknownst ripple effect throughout the nation, and perhaps the world.
I say this because, as Atlanta was known throughout the South as the city “too busy to hate,” it certainly showed its prejudices when a great numbers of white, at the time, couldn’t bare the thought of living in a city that “glorified” a black man in such a manner or even live or work on a street in that same context. Or, even as I have heard later, a symbolic gesture that would forever define Atlanta as the home of the Civil Rights leader by having his name run from the horizons across the city, from sunrise to sunset, ultimately defining the city in no way that it had ever been defined before. But while I truly believe those were the fears for some, I honestly believe that the fear of change so quickly got the best of most, in oppose to those other prejudices.
I cannot speak about other places in depth, because my experiences in living in other places haven’t been that vast, but I can say that growing up here in Atlanta (most areas in the city limits being primarily black before the Olympics, long before inheriting the official “Black Mecca” moniker), I never really thought about the story of Hunter Street in depth, something that my mother would share from time to time when she was reflecting upon the changes she and my father have seen since their arrival from the rural stretches of the northern part of Middle Georgia. For one, it was a full decade plus before my time. And secondly, because I was only surrounded by faces similar to my own for so long that I honestly never gave much credence to the plight of the other races for various reasons, ranging from being a minority majority in a city that was “too busy” to truly acknowledge their was a cultural shift or a social turmoil until later years, to understanding that I was still a minority in the Deep South every time I left the comforts of home, traveling through places where my family and I often got mean-mugged for not knowing that it was still socially polite to bow our head in the presence of certain so-called self-proclaimed superiors instead of looking at them as equals.
But the fact that most of that changed once the City was awarded to host the Centennial Olympic Games in 1996 and continued to have a more significant if not a more resonating presence long after the fact with gentrification, or more commonly known here as “white flight” back into the city. Truly putting to the test whether or not we can harmonize no only as a city but build together as a community of diverse neighborhood (before the housing meltdown) started to look more like a checkerboard rather than a big ol’ pot of gray.
By now, either some of you got where I am going with this while most of you are probably wondering what the title of this blog has to do with any of this that I have wrote. It is all to say that once or twice again we face with the enviable question:
Not can we brace for change, but can we embrace each other in change?
I first take the opportunity to reflect on this question on my own conscious, thinking back on my own happiness and upsets in change, especially in the gentrification process here in Atlanta, and how it forever changed the landscape of everything I once love and knew (and other things being a two-way split between “good riddance” and something I was really indifferent to but simply gotten use to seeing or feeling). These thing go from shopping in the old Rich’s building downtown to the way Lenox Mall used to look before it got all uppity (with Houlihan’s being the only main attraction beside the movie theatre) to the implosion of the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and the fairs that used to be held in the parking lot across the street (now Turner Field); I think about Lakewood Freeway becoming Langford Parkway; Butler Street becoming Jesse Hill Jr. Drive (which I still think was stupid because of my constant want to say Butler Street whenever someone ask for directions to go there being that I have been here most of my life); Hightower becoming H.E. Homes, both road and train station; Bankhead—Hollowell; Simpson—Boone; so on and so forth. I think about the changing of the established neighborhoods getting a breath of fresh air, be it good or bad, and many of the things that were pretty much given up on of ever stepping foot inside of the Perimeter again did. Even as large as that, even things as minute as my two struggling elementary school alma maters coming together to create a super academy, in same spot corporate sponsors had to come in years earlier to save a school that was on the verge of closing its doors.
But as I think about those countless things that have changed faces or disappeared or recently came onto the scene, I think about the changes that have always been apart of us. I especially think back to the elementary school that I really wanted to go to and its closing its doors a couple of years later. And as I pass by the building (which it still stand to be converted into lofts) almost every other day, I don’t think about that that much. Nor do I think about the old high school (before my time) that sat atop the hill now converted into lofts.
Because in many respects they have always been apart of us, just changed the purpose or even as slight as changing the name.
I stress all of this nostalgic stuff because I know that as America move in a “fundamentally new direction” it is nothing more than a PC way of saying a “change” is going to come something that most people are afraid of when they know it is coming and something that just became apart of the fabric when it transpired.
And as we have seen a seismic shift in our country, from the preconceived notions that we (once?) had about race or the capability one person with the help of legions behind him can accomplish, I take not and bear witness to the change people hunger for and the drive people have to help him and themselves to, dare I be so bold to say it, to make a change that will ultimate heal many of the wedges that somehow made us forget that at the end of the day that all of us pretty much strive for humanity, in spite of our many differences.
In this however, I take not, on the other side of the aisle. And I am not talking about politics (because most of my respected Republican friends, mostly white and some black, knew that his change was destine to come because of the many failures and short-sightedness of the current administration), but rather those that fear change, be it good or bad, because of the uncertainty that it wielded.
Like I said before, most are afraid of change. Some simply because it is different. Others because it really put to the test and challenge their ignorance, from the person who thought someone was less than because of the variant color of their skin to the child who was brought to believe they were less than by their own family, even though their skin pigmentation mimics that of their parents. There is also a group of people as one of my liberated white friend s put it, particularly amongst those that are old enough to remember “the way it used to be,” and fear retribution from the pains inflicted by their ancestors and in some cases themselves have come home to roost. Keep in mind also there are still some alive that are still reeling from the imprint that the Civil Rights movement has put on this country.
And while I would love to challenge all those thoughts and processes, for whatever merit they stand on, I have to be mindful (we have to be mindful) that we are barely a generation or two away from the grips of Jim Crow and the chains of slavery that it is attached to.
So as I get used to the idea of change, and the hop it promises for a better day, be it whatever that is to you. I also have to go back to that time on Hunter Street, where it all started out with nothing more than the change of a name followed by the change of everything…hopefully in the spec for the better.
Hanging
Part I
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2006
It was funny.
Well, it wasn’t funny in the moment.
It actually became funny many moments later.After some four hundred plus years on the North American continent, I was naïve to think that the world might be partially ready for a book that takes an in-depth look into the Black man and the myth of his ever large penis.
Even with giving the world that much credit, I couldn’t even get the book without much ado controversy.
Because of my love for the library system and already having three bookshelves packed with books (85% of them I have read by the way), do I rarely even consider purchasing another book unless I know for certain that it is limited in publication, or that my library doesn’t have the intention of carrying it.
A book by a black man entitled Hung wasn’t something I could pass up on.
So, my initial intent, anyway, was to purchase the book. Not only did I want it around as a conversation piece, but my perverted alter ego wanted to see the reaction on the clerk’s face when he or she saw a Black man buying a book called Hung accompanied with the picture of a toned black man and a ruler starting at six inches and trailing onto the infamous foot.
As I try to stay away from conglomerates like Barnes & Noble and Boarders nowadays, as a small protest to capitalism and globalization, I start my search for the title at some of my favorite black bookstores throughout the city. Sorry to say, and like the story usually goes, if they hadn’t received the order for the book they either ran out of copies. The ladies behind the counter coyly smiles and state my name followed by the title of the book as they put me on their waiting list.
My next stop is the gay bookstore. For me, going to a gay bookstore already implies that I’m going to pay full price instead of getting a discount that I probably would receive at a franchise or even at my neighborhood bookstore. The reason being is that every dollar spent is going into gay pockets; so I have been told. I’m like Tupac, I ain’t mad at them, and secretly wish that the Black community would attempt to do that even more to the same beat. What gets me annoyed, though, is being the lonely black man in a sea of gay white faces. When there are some other black men they spend most of their time perusing the magazine rack for erotic exploits or to see what’s good on the racks (and snow queens, another article). And if that wasn’t enough, I get the Love It or Fear It mentality from most of these white patrons as well as white gay men in general. They love that I’m black and possibly can fulfill their Mandingo fantasy while others feel that they can’t measure up to the black man, or whatever idiosyncrasies they might have about not liking me.
Some times, it is one and the same with a very rare medium.
Thankfully, when various staff members of these institutions see me come through there doors, they know me as being an avid reader looking for my next good book. It has gotten to the place now where I can have a five to ten minute conversation about my latest read or the new arrivals or books that have interest the staff and might just interest me, if I hadn’t had the opportunity to read it.
Keep these factors in mind.
So, when I enter a local gay bookstore on my quest for the book, I should not have been surprise that Hung by Scott Poulson-Bryant greeted me. I was in the sense that there weren’t a boatload of black patrons that frequented the gay establishment to have such a large display in the middle of the floor. Other than being Hung the book also states being a ‘mediation on the measurement of Black men in America’. But then, again, were talking about gay men, many like myself that couldn’t pass on the open display of the title and the front cover.
Before I could get my first snicker out, there was a silence that cast the room and the eyes of white men, young and old, were on me and my crotch. Most were of smirks while a couple looked in utter disgust. It was very surreal moment. And if it hadn’t been for my white friend Shane to confirm it, I would have just passed it off as a figment of my imagination.“No, boo,” Shane states frankly. “These Little Red Ridding Hoods want to see what a big black dick you and Mr. Pulsing-Giant have.”
If I was a braver man I would have confronted the entire place, in essence confronting the white race while I had their attention. Who in the hell they thought I was suppose to be?
Sledgehammer or Brian Pumper?
Lexington Steele or Mr. Marcus?
Sean Michaels or Jake Sneed?
Let’s go back a little bit further or gayer, Gene Lamar or Bobby Blake?
Andre Bolla or Ace Johnson?
Mike Tyson?
LL Cool J?
Big Daddy Kane?
Denzel?
Mandingo?
Who?
Am I the black guy that had his kid sister so wide open that she learned how to sing like a black girl? Was I the one he saw stalk naked in the high school locker room not at all bashful about my endowment? Or, am I the one he had to suck off to join the fraternity? Hell, I could be the black escort that blew out his best friend’s back?
If I was a bolder man, I probably would have given them the Full Monty of what they all really wanted to know. Then, of course, I would’ve given them just about every stereotype of a black man for the price of one. But I am not a bolder man, I am my own man. A black man. A man nonetheless that wanted to hide in the mist of white faces that wanted me to be that sexualized beast amongst them.
Unfortunately, because of the response toward the display and being the only black man in the place, I did not purchase the book and avoided it like plague.I was however bombarded with a few stalking stares, particularly those aware of the book in the shop. After I made my point of not being afraid and trying to go about my business, Shane suggested we leave. It was in part because of me and my new founded attention. The rest had to do with him being the little white guy stripped of any shred of masculinity next to the big black guy.
Things escalated even more once we left.
First, a couple of professional white guys, after learning that Shane and I weren’t a couple, brazenly propositioned me for sex. Insulted, Shane and I moved over to a coffee shop where some of the guys from the bookstore followed me and began to shamelessly hit on me. When I refused all offers, a couple of bad apples began to make racial and lewd sexual comments once we made it back outside.
For the first time in my life, being a product of the inner city of a city that once was predominant black, I felt my hands were tied. I was a black man in a prominent white area of the city, and if I acted a fool I would have been a product of our judicial system. I had experience many forms of racism before, but this was the first time it blatantly revolved around my penis.
Ironically, this well-built white guy passing by took care of the problem for me since Shane was too small to really fight this battle. I thanked the guy, of course, with some embarrassment that I couldn’t logically defend myself without getting into some kind trouble. He was modest, told me to think nothing of it as I offered to buy him a cup of coffee.
After much convincing, he agreed. He said he was used to seeing white guys making plays for black guys, and vice versa, but he didn’t understand what was going on to spew such animosity. Comfortably, knowing that they guy was either gay or gay-friendly or even bi like me, I explained to him about the Hung book display, what the book was about, and being the only black guy in the bookstore and all the harassment that followed.
George, is what I’ll call him, had this concern look to overcome him. When I asked what was wrong, George was silent. He eventually admitted that he was biracial, a product of a love affair between a white father and a black mother. And that being mixed, he really didn’t know where he fitted in on the whole penile issue, something that had been an issue he has struggled with most of his life along with race in general.
Even though, he fitted in more under the European umbrella than the typical white American umbrella, he always wondered if the myth was true and if it in some way applied to him. When George was younger, he used to secretly measure himself against his black and white cousins. He was never quiet sure whether or not he was measuring them right. In the sense, he was already taught from a very young age that black was bigger than white. So, he always wondered if he saw his black cousins bigger than his white cousins because he was taught that they were suppose to be bigger.
George really became interested in the myth of black men being hung when he was about fifteen years old. The experience that led to this fascination happened when he caught a glimpse of one of his older black schoolmates in the locker room. Apparently, his schoolmate lived up to the myth without an erection as it made its presence known with the girls and the guys. If that wasn’t enough for Poor George, when he got home he caught his maternal grandfather pulling his black schlong out of one of his younger girlfriends. The excitement that George explain seeing his grandfather’s ‘monstrosity’ reminds me of a passage in Don Spear’s In Search of Goodpussy, where the author’s uncle’s friend is describe of having a member thick as a painter’s wrist (which is pretty thick) and as long like a forearm. Whether or not the reference is an exaggeration, it puts a lot of pressure for black men across the board to live up to that larger-than-life image.
George, who never felt like he lived up to his grandfather’s standards, felt pretty comfortable with his size. This only boasted his ego after many of his conquest (many of whom weren’t aware that he was part-black) thought he was big for a white guy. When it came to others that actually got a chance to know him and his ethnicities, he got an average. One time, he was dismissed from a piece’s bedroom for not being black enough, which translated to him not being big enough.
Listening to this story made me want to go back over to the gay bookstore and endure the scandal to purchase the book. Think about it: If I could get this complete stranger to share intimate details about his life revolving this age old myth of measurements and Black men in America just by giving a synopsis of the book, then I think the Poulson-Bryant could be onto something. Maybe it was definitely something worth building a forum around. (A few weeks ago, Joyce Litel from V-103 did on her Sunday night Love & Relationship series). I mean a gathering of black men to talk about the perks and curses of this myth and how it infiltrates into our communities. And it does, for George it was the myth and how he measured. For me it was the power the myth holds. Not to go into too much detail since I’ve decided to this blog in parts, one of the powers of the myths that somewhat holds true for me is the access you have to women or the perceived access you suppose to have for being a black man automatically attached to the myth. And with the cries of DL going on, other men that are not perceived as gay are also in the fold.
As I mentioned earlier, I am not a brave man, so I let the book stay at the store and went home.
Days later, after I hadn’t heard anything from the black bookstores, I found Hung on the African-American table at the Atlanta-Fulton County Library. I had tried putting the book on hold a month earlier, but quickly found out that they only had it as a reference book at nearby Auburn Avenue Research Library. So, I was pleasantly surprise to find the book unattended and available for check out.
When I got in the checkout line with Hung and another book revolving around being your own literary agent, I was amazed by the attention I got for just holding the book. An old black security guard gave me a nod, as if to say that I was a part of some secret brotherhood. A white man, who I suspected to be a gay professional, felt compelled to start a conversation with me while glancing down a the book and my breadbasket. And just when I thought I hadn’t seen it (or felt it) all then, a white woman in front of me kept on “accidentally” brushing her hand against my crotch. When she knew she could get away with it, she gave Mr. Hutchinson a squeeze before smoothly slipping her name and number between my hand and the book.
Finally, when I got to the librarian, a brotha, and watch him do his scanning thing, I noticed two things: He handed me the literary agent book. He tossed me Hung. Any other time, I would have responded. I would have gotten the librarian’s name and contacted his boss. But, I let it go. I decided that his attitude wasn’t that deep with me. I was too exhausted from this whole entire experience with this one particular book to even care anymore. The librarian’s issue may have lied with the book or its topic and not me. Hell, he may have had issues with the author, who knows. Now that I fought hell come high water to get this book in front of me, I guess I should start reading it
.…Of course, I’m going to do so in the privacy of my own home.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2006
It was funny.
Well, it wasn’t funny in the moment.
It actually became funny many moments later.After some four hundred plus years on the North American continent, I was naïve to think that the world might be partially ready for a book that takes an in-depth look into the Black man and the myth of his ever large penis.
Even with giving the world that much credit, I couldn’t even get the book without much ado controversy.
Because of my love for the library system and already having three bookshelves packed with books (85% of them I have read by the way), do I rarely even consider purchasing another book unless I know for certain that it is limited in publication, or that my library doesn’t have the intention of carrying it.
A book by a black man entitled Hung wasn’t something I could pass up on.
So, my initial intent, anyway, was to purchase the book. Not only did I want it around as a conversation piece, but my perverted alter ego wanted to see the reaction on the clerk’s face when he or she saw a Black man buying a book called Hung accompanied with the picture of a toned black man and a ruler starting at six inches and trailing onto the infamous foot.
As I try to stay away from conglomerates like Barnes & Noble and Boarders nowadays, as a small protest to capitalism and globalization, I start my search for the title at some of my favorite black bookstores throughout the city. Sorry to say, and like the story usually goes, if they hadn’t received the order for the book they either ran out of copies. The ladies behind the counter coyly smiles and state my name followed by the title of the book as they put me on their waiting list.
My next stop is the gay bookstore. For me, going to a gay bookstore already implies that I’m going to pay full price instead of getting a discount that I probably would receive at a franchise or even at my neighborhood bookstore. The reason being is that every dollar spent is going into gay pockets; so I have been told. I’m like Tupac, I ain’t mad at them, and secretly wish that the Black community would attempt to do that even more to the same beat. What gets me annoyed, though, is being the lonely black man in a sea of gay white faces. When there are some other black men they spend most of their time perusing the magazine rack for erotic exploits or to see what’s good on the racks (and snow queens, another article). And if that wasn’t enough, I get the Love It or Fear It mentality from most of these white patrons as well as white gay men in general. They love that I’m black and possibly can fulfill their Mandingo fantasy while others feel that they can’t measure up to the black man, or whatever idiosyncrasies they might have about not liking me.
Some times, it is one and the same with a very rare medium.
Thankfully, when various staff members of these institutions see me come through there doors, they know me as being an avid reader looking for my next good book. It has gotten to the place now where I can have a five to ten minute conversation about my latest read or the new arrivals or books that have interest the staff and might just interest me, if I hadn’t had the opportunity to read it.
Keep these factors in mind.
So, when I enter a local gay bookstore on my quest for the book, I should not have been surprise that Hung by Scott Poulson-Bryant greeted me. I was in the sense that there weren’t a boatload of black patrons that frequented the gay establishment to have such a large display in the middle of the floor. Other than being Hung the book also states being a ‘mediation on the measurement of Black men in America’. But then, again, were talking about gay men, many like myself that couldn’t pass on the open display of the title and the front cover.
Before I could get my first snicker out, there was a silence that cast the room and the eyes of white men, young and old, were on me and my crotch. Most were of smirks while a couple looked in utter disgust. It was very surreal moment. And if it hadn’t been for my white friend Shane to confirm it, I would have just passed it off as a figment of my imagination.“No, boo,” Shane states frankly. “These Little Red Ridding Hoods want to see what a big black dick you and Mr. Pulsing-Giant have.”
If I was a braver man I would have confronted the entire place, in essence confronting the white race while I had their attention. Who in the hell they thought I was suppose to be?
Sledgehammer or Brian Pumper?
Lexington Steele or Mr. Marcus?
Sean Michaels or Jake Sneed?
Let’s go back a little bit further or gayer, Gene Lamar or Bobby Blake?
Andre Bolla or Ace Johnson?
Mike Tyson?
LL Cool J?
Big Daddy Kane?
Denzel?
Mandingo?
Who?
Am I the black guy that had his kid sister so wide open that she learned how to sing like a black girl? Was I the one he saw stalk naked in the high school locker room not at all bashful about my endowment? Or, am I the one he had to suck off to join the fraternity? Hell, I could be the black escort that blew out his best friend’s back?
If I was a bolder man, I probably would have given them the Full Monty of what they all really wanted to know. Then, of course, I would’ve given them just about every stereotype of a black man for the price of one. But I am not a bolder man, I am my own man. A black man. A man nonetheless that wanted to hide in the mist of white faces that wanted me to be that sexualized beast amongst them.
Unfortunately, because of the response toward the display and being the only black man in the place, I did not purchase the book and avoided it like plague.I was however bombarded with a few stalking stares, particularly those aware of the book in the shop. After I made my point of not being afraid and trying to go about my business, Shane suggested we leave. It was in part because of me and my new founded attention. The rest had to do with him being the little white guy stripped of any shred of masculinity next to the big black guy.
Things escalated even more once we left.
First, a couple of professional white guys, after learning that Shane and I weren’t a couple, brazenly propositioned me for sex. Insulted, Shane and I moved over to a coffee shop where some of the guys from the bookstore followed me and began to shamelessly hit on me. When I refused all offers, a couple of bad apples began to make racial and lewd sexual comments once we made it back outside.
For the first time in my life, being a product of the inner city of a city that once was predominant black, I felt my hands were tied. I was a black man in a prominent white area of the city, and if I acted a fool I would have been a product of our judicial system. I had experience many forms of racism before, but this was the first time it blatantly revolved around my penis.
Ironically, this well-built white guy passing by took care of the problem for me since Shane was too small to really fight this battle. I thanked the guy, of course, with some embarrassment that I couldn’t logically defend myself without getting into some kind trouble. He was modest, told me to think nothing of it as I offered to buy him a cup of coffee.
After much convincing, he agreed. He said he was used to seeing white guys making plays for black guys, and vice versa, but he didn’t understand what was going on to spew such animosity. Comfortably, knowing that they guy was either gay or gay-friendly or even bi like me, I explained to him about the Hung book display, what the book was about, and being the only black guy in the bookstore and all the harassment that followed.
George, is what I’ll call him, had this concern look to overcome him. When I asked what was wrong, George was silent. He eventually admitted that he was biracial, a product of a love affair between a white father and a black mother. And that being mixed, he really didn’t know where he fitted in on the whole penile issue, something that had been an issue he has struggled with most of his life along with race in general.
Even though, he fitted in more under the European umbrella than the typical white American umbrella, he always wondered if the myth was true and if it in some way applied to him. When George was younger, he used to secretly measure himself against his black and white cousins. He was never quiet sure whether or not he was measuring them right. In the sense, he was already taught from a very young age that black was bigger than white. So, he always wondered if he saw his black cousins bigger than his white cousins because he was taught that they were suppose to be bigger.
George really became interested in the myth of black men being hung when he was about fifteen years old. The experience that led to this fascination happened when he caught a glimpse of one of his older black schoolmates in the locker room. Apparently, his schoolmate lived up to the myth without an erection as it made its presence known with the girls and the guys. If that wasn’t enough for Poor George, when he got home he caught his maternal grandfather pulling his black schlong out of one of his younger girlfriends. The excitement that George explain seeing his grandfather’s ‘monstrosity’ reminds me of a passage in Don Spear’s In Search of Goodpussy, where the author’s uncle’s friend is describe of having a member thick as a painter’s wrist (which is pretty thick) and as long like a forearm. Whether or not the reference is an exaggeration, it puts a lot of pressure for black men across the board to live up to that larger-than-life image.
George, who never felt like he lived up to his grandfather’s standards, felt pretty comfortable with his size. This only boasted his ego after many of his conquest (many of whom weren’t aware that he was part-black) thought he was big for a white guy. When it came to others that actually got a chance to know him and his ethnicities, he got an average. One time, he was dismissed from a piece’s bedroom for not being black enough, which translated to him not being big enough.
Listening to this story made me want to go back over to the gay bookstore and endure the scandal to purchase the book. Think about it: If I could get this complete stranger to share intimate details about his life revolving this age old myth of measurements and Black men in America just by giving a synopsis of the book, then I think the Poulson-Bryant could be onto something. Maybe it was definitely something worth building a forum around. (A few weeks ago, Joyce Litel from V-103 did on her Sunday night Love & Relationship series). I mean a gathering of black men to talk about the perks and curses of this myth and how it infiltrates into our communities. And it does, for George it was the myth and how he measured. For me it was the power the myth holds. Not to go into too much detail since I’ve decided to this blog in parts, one of the powers of the myths that somewhat holds true for me is the access you have to women or the perceived access you suppose to have for being a black man automatically attached to the myth. And with the cries of DL going on, other men that are not perceived as gay are also in the fold.
As I mentioned earlier, I am not a brave man, so I let the book stay at the store and went home.
Days later, after I hadn’t heard anything from the black bookstores, I found Hung on the African-American table at the Atlanta-Fulton County Library. I had tried putting the book on hold a month earlier, but quickly found out that they only had it as a reference book at nearby Auburn Avenue Research Library. So, I was pleasantly surprise to find the book unattended and available for check out.
When I got in the checkout line with Hung and another book revolving around being your own literary agent, I was amazed by the attention I got for just holding the book. An old black security guard gave me a nod, as if to say that I was a part of some secret brotherhood. A white man, who I suspected to be a gay professional, felt compelled to start a conversation with me while glancing down a the book and my breadbasket. And just when I thought I hadn’t seen it (or felt it) all then, a white woman in front of me kept on “accidentally” brushing her hand against my crotch. When she knew she could get away with it, she gave Mr. Hutchinson a squeeze before smoothly slipping her name and number between my hand and the book.
Finally, when I got to the librarian, a brotha, and watch him do his scanning thing, I noticed two things: He handed me the literary agent book. He tossed me Hung. Any other time, I would have responded. I would have gotten the librarian’s name and contacted his boss. But, I let it go. I decided that his attitude wasn’t that deep with me. I was too exhausted from this whole entire experience with this one particular book to even care anymore. The librarian’s issue may have lied with the book or its topic and not me. Hell, he may have had issues with the author, who knows. Now that I fought hell come high water to get this book in front of me, I guess I should start reading it
.…Of course, I’m going to do so in the privacy of my own home.
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