Bernie Mac (1957 - 2008)

I believe that embracing fear produces courage.

After my brother died in an accident, my mother was inconsolable. I was only 4 years old at the time, but I still understood the seismic shift in my mom’s attitude toward safety. Suddenly, everything around us was potentially dangerous. Overnight, the world had gone from a playground to a hazardous zone. [Read more]

Here is some sound advice from Jay Smooth. His blog is always thoughtful and informative check him out on youtube or at his site. ENJOY.

p.s. to whom it my concern, we need to talk

They made me cut the cord. Let me be clear they didn’t “make me” but when a room full of women who are medical professionals hold surgical scissors in your direction and say “who wants to cut the cord” then they all look at you, you can’t NOT do that. I know its sounds weird to some people but I didn’t want to cut the chord. I’m glad I did but I really like to leave the professional work to the professionals, even the easy stuff.

If you go to a deli for a sandwich if they take the time to fry the meat up, put on the lettuce, tomatoes, onions, bread ketchup, and pickles, oils, pepper, salt and even wrap it in that deli paper and slice it for you I figure they can be the one who puts the toothpick in it.

I decided to write down my experiences really more as therapy though this transition. I know therapy and transition usually have negative connotations but I wanted to dedicate something to beauty. [Read more]

Ok so couple of months ago I became a father.
And I saw it. You know IT !
Birth!
Like a person come out of a person.
As you read this you I can feel you’re not amazed by this. Somewhere in you there is something saying “this happens all the time around the world” or “ I can see a birth on one of these medical shows on cable.”
But maybe you should say the phrase slowly 3 times and really think about it
“A  FULLY FORMED PERSON WAS PUSHED OUT OF ANOTHER PERSON”
I was not bought to tears of joy nor was I terrified it was just AWE. Like watching Cirque de Soleil rehearse. Puzzled… maybe that’s the word I’m looking for? How is this possible? Either way I mention this all to say something to all artists out there.

You are no longer allowed to say that you are  “pregnant with an idea” or that you “gave birth to something ” EVER! [Read more]

I remember the first time I saw George Carlin. I was maybe eight years old, and was flipping though channels at my father’s house. I came across this bearded man speaking to a large crowd of young people. In my mind he was a professor and those were his students… my father being a professor at Hunter College at the time was my only point of reference for that dynamic. He seemed almost too smart to be a comic. I remember watching him & being fascinated by the way he used words and thinking what school is this? Clearly he is teaching but what is the subject? And how fun it must be to be one of his students.

He will be remembered.

He left so much good stuff to for us to marvel at.

I would’ve loved to have been able to tell him to his face how much what he had to say and how he said it meant to me.

He is one of the greats.

Cody Chesnutt - one of the most eclectic artists of the past 10 years - has peeked his head above ground once again to give us an audio jewel for the campaign season. please know that you’ll be hearing this in a future DJ set…stay tuned.

What if I told you that i saw a game that involved a character that had dark skin with big red lips and was wearing only a grass skirt? What if I told that he also had a bone through his nose and the goal of the game was to out run a rhino? What year would you think these images from? Perhaps the turn of the century, perhaps early 40’s or 50’s.

Well folks you’d be wrong those images where from the year 2007 and the place those images were seen was on a banner ad on MYSPACE!

There’s more than one - in another, a similar character stands opposite a gorilla, with the goal of the game to push a coconut out of a tree.

If the ad were on a smaller site perhaps I could manage to be less concerned. But this site has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world and whether consciously or not they influence the perception of those people depicted. I know that these are concerns of myspace as indicated by their very detailed process of screening and the ability to report if some one is lewd, crass, offensive or otherwise insensitive. So imagine my shock when I didn’t get so much as a “we’ll look into it’ and got pretty much the same reaction when I sent the complaint to other sites whom I thought could help make my point.

The silence was deafening. Was I crazy?

[Read more]

A friend of mine told me that I need to “dream bigger.”
She was right, it’s a common trap.
We (as adults) often can’t see past the restrictions that experience has handed us thought the years. We dream with limits. Dream, and let the world limit you if it can.

The other thing you need to practice is having your own dream. If you wish for something someone else wants you will never be at peace.