Things We Used To Do

“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.”

25 Signs You Have Grown Up ... ... Old!

1. Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.

2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.

3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.

4. 6:00 a.m is when you get up, not when you go to bed.

5. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.

6. You watch the Weather Channel.

7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of hook up and breakup.

8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.

9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as dressed up.

10. You’re the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.

11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.

12. You don’t know what time Wendy’s closes anymore.

13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.

14. You feed your dog Science Diets… Instead of McDonald’s leftovers.

15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.

16. You take naps.

17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.

18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at three in the morning would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.

19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.

20. A four dollar bottle of wine is no longer pretty good shit.

21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.

22. “I just can’t drink the way I used to” replaces “I’m never going to drink that much again”

23. Ninety percent of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.

24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.

25. When you find out your friend is pregnant you congratulate them instead of asking , ”Oh shit what the hell happened??”

Bonus:

26: You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that it doesn’t apply to you and can’t find one to save your sorry old ass.

Eish! A New African Language

Bad - you sleep on it in the badroom Beds -,eagles, doves, sea-gulls etc Beg - container, as in shopping beg, hend-beg, tog-beg Ben - to set alight Chealdren - our future is in their hands Chetz - where worshippers go on Sundays Cuds - you can play poker or rummy with them Cut - a small donkey-drawn vehicle Debben - city in KwaZulu Natal Deekshunry - where you find weds Detty - opposite of clean Driva - holds the steering wheel of a teksi Duck - very duck at night when the lights are all off Ebben - you get ebben erriors and rural erriors Effrican - from the continent of Africa Erriors - districts, e.g. ebben erriors Ewways - eg. SAA, Comair, Lufthansa etc Fems - companies, e.g., Anglo-American Fest - the one before second and third Fok - used with nifes Fok ass - focus Fum - you can fum with ship or kettle Fumma - he owns the fum and grows bins Guddin - where you grow kebbijees and rep Geave - you MUST geave, I WILL take Get - a hinged device in a fence, may be used instead of door Hair - as opposed to heem/hairs (gender) Heppi - state of elatement, e.g. I'm so heppi - I just voted Hiss - masculine form of hairs Hubba - where sheeps dock amd boats sell Jems - little bugs that give you the flu Kah - what you drive around in Kebbijees - vegetable Keptown - some think parliament doesn't belong there Kettegry - in a system of classification Kipper - one who kips, as in goal kipper Kleenix - where nesses wek Kot - where the judges sit and you pay fines Len - to acquire knowledge Leeda - as in Arwa Leeda, Obama the president Lungwich - weds that are spokkin Nesses - they wek in kleenix and hospitals Pee pull - powa to da pee pull Peppa - one way to get the news Pesson - one of pee pull Pees - symbolised by white dove Pees-Tox - between IRA and Tony Blair Reeva - e.g. Limpopo, Vaal, Mississippi Ree kwest - replaced by dee mands Sheep - big boat Shex - houses in squatter camps Ship - provider of wool Shuck-attak - if the shuck-net is brokkin Shuck-nets - at Debben, for safety of sweemas Spitch - what politicians make at a relly Sweemas - compete in a sweeming pul Teksi - kah for hire - sometimes parrot teksi Thest - ice cold Coke will relieve it on a hot day Tipic ally - characteristically Tox - negotiations Ummy - military force Wee men - ladies We pon - a gun Wean-dow - with glus for throwing bricks through Weaner - the one with the most votes Weds - what the dictionary is made up of Wekkas - do the wek Weld - the whole eth Wems - small crawly creatures

2 In The Morning

I smoke two joints in the morning,
I smoke two joints at night.
I smoke two joints in the afternoon,
And it makes me feel alright.
Smoke two joints in time of peace,
Into the time of war.
Smoke two joints before I smoke two joints,
And then I smoke some more.....

Republicans Are Sipping Tea: Democratic Infighting Gives GOP Rare Victory In Hawaii

Republican Charles Djou took advantage of an intra-party fight among Democrats to snatch a House seat that Democrats had held for 20 years in Hawaii.

Djou, a Honolulu city councilman, won 67,274 votes or 39.5 percent of those cast.

The special election was for the state's 1st congressional district, which opened up after 10-term Democratic lawmaker Rep. Neil Abercrombie stepped down earlier this year to concentrate full-time on his bid for Hawaii governor.

The seat includes Honolulu and some surrounding suburbs. President Obama, who spent parts of his childhood in the district, won 70 percent of the vote in the 2008 presidential election.

But there were two Democratic candidates on the ballot in this election and recent polls indicate they were splitting the vote.

The results, posted on the state's Office of Elections website late Saturday, proved likewise:

State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, considered the more liberal candidate, received 52,445 votes or 30.8 percent. She had been in third place in recent polls, but she refused to step aside.

Former Rep. Ed Case, considered the more moderate candidate, garnered 47,012 votes or 27.6 percent.

The special election was a winner-take-all contest, with only a plurality needed for victory.

National Democratic Party organizations favored Case but did not formally endorse either of their party's candidates.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ran ads that criticized Djou. But earlier this month, after it was clear neither candidate would drop out, the DCCC stopped spending any more money or time on the race.

Djou will have to defend the seat come November, and national Democrats are saving their firepower for that contest, when only one Democrat will be on the ballot.

"We're looking at November in Hawaii," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the DCCC chairman, told reporters Thursday. "I think you all know the situation, and it's important that people do understand the unique circumstances of a special election in Hawaii - you don't have a primary. You have, in this case, three candidates - two Democrats and one Republican. I can confidently predict that the Democrats together will get a majority of the vote. Just like the Democratic candidate in November will get a majority of the vote."

But a win for Djou in the special election was seen as a symbolic victory for the GOP.

"The fact that we have an opportunity to win in President Obama's childhood district where he received 70 percent of the vote in '08, speaks to the quality of Charles Djou's candidacy and the level of Republican voter intensity across the country," Ken Spain, NRCC communications director, said last week.

American Pimp .... A Hughes Brothers Production

I've always had a guilty curiosity about the life of a pimp. Of course, we have those "pimp stereotypes" in films like "The Mack" and "Willie Dynamite." But do we really, really know ALL about this lucrative, though immoral, profession? Thanks to the Hughes Brothers, now we do.

First of all, this well-made documentary doesn't glorify the life of street pimps. I'm sure a lot of you out there (especially women) will take one look at a film like this, and say to yourself, "Why the hell do I want to watch a movie about greedy, heartless, misogynistic 'mack daddies' who make a living at degrading women for their own financial pleasure?" The Hughes Brothers don't try to take sides. In fact, the film opens with a montage of opinions (mostly negative) from everyday people about these pimps. Whether you condone the industry or condemn it, that's not the issue.

Allen and Albert Hughes do a wonderful job at intercutting the views and "days in the lives" of real pimps with clips from seventies blaxploitation flicks and topping it off with a vivid soundtrack filled with classic soul music. The film starts out by showing the more luxurious, darkly comic side of pimping. It's interesting to learn what real pimps really have to say. Of course, their vocabularies practically consist of three words: "ni**a," "motherf**ker" and "b**ch." But hey, that's how they talk. Am I going to blame the Hughes Brothers for writing an excessively profane script? They didn't write a script! This is how these pimps really talk!

As the film goes on, we learn the more serious side of pimping. We learn the pimping REALLY ain't easy. But at the same time, they're not completely heartless. When one of their "hos" die or get sucked into drug addiction, they can't go on with their lives like nothing happened. And it's interesting to see how different pimps took different paths. Some decided to quit the business and concentrate on raising their families, some ended up in the penitentiary and some (believe it or not) found religion. But some still feel that pimping is the way to go, and though it's immoral, they don't necessarily think it's wrong. We even get a brief introduction into the lives of "legal pimps." You know, those clean-cut white guys with the fancy whorehouses with quality hookers who will do anything they please for a large sum of money.

Expect to see gratuitous close-ups of female rear ends. At times, you feel as if you're watching a 2 Live Crew video. This is another film that I can consider a feminist's nightmare. Nevertheless, it's wonderfully done, eye-catching, compelling, funny and sometimes heartfelt. The Hughes meant to explore the subject without patronizing it. And I found it quite fascinating. If there happened to be a filmmaker who explored the world of pimping before these guys, then let me know. Until then, I give Allen and Albert two thumbs up for taking on daring subject matter involving an underworld of people often overlooked--or broadly portrayed--by the average filmmaker.

Be Wary Of Fal$e Prophets!

Remember this chick? Ms Cleo, the tarot card, crystal ball, 1-800 fortune telling, tele-scammer?

How many of you minkeys n monkeys actually called this number? ….. Yeah Right!?!

Truth be told we all knew she was a scam and so did she. But you know what, a hell of a lot of people “believed” in her n $he cashed in…. She knew and we knew but she damned conventional thought and wisdom! She marketed a lie in the form of hope and people believed. I know there are others like me who at one point thought about calling her at 3.28am on a Sunday, not because I was wasted, but just to see .....

My question to you is this. Are you telling the lies or are you listening?

John Arthur ("Jack") Johnson

The “Galveston Giant."

Arthur John (Jack) Johnson was the first black and first Texan, to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world.

Born in Galveston Texas on March 31, 1878, he was the second of six children of Henry and Tiny Johnson. Henry was a former slave and his family was poor. After leaving school in the fifth grade, Johnson worked odd jobs around South Texas. He started boxing as a sparring partner and fought in the "battles royal," matches in which young blacks entertained white spectators who threw money to the winner.

Johnson turned professional in 1897 following a period with private clubs in Galveston. His family's home was destroyed by the great hurricane of 1900. A year later he was arrested and jailed because boxing was a criminal profession in Texas. He soon left Galveston for good.

Johnson first became the heavyweight champion of Negro boxing. Jim Jeffries, the white champ at the time, refused to fight Johnson because he was black. Then, in 1908, Johnson knocked out Tommy Burns in Australia to become world champion, although he was not officially given the title until 1910 when he finally fought and beat Jeffries in Reno. Jeffries had come out of retirement to become the first of many so-called "great white hopes."

Race rioting was sparked after the Johnson-Jeffries fight. A number of leading American film companies joined forces to shoot footage of the Jeffries-Johnson fight and turn it into a feature-length documentary film, at the cost of $100,000. The film was distributed widely in the U.S. and was exhibited internationally as well. As a result, Congress banned prize fight films from 1912 until 1940. In 2005, the film of the Jeffries-Johnson "Fight of the Century" was entered into the United States National Film Registry as being worthy of preservation. The Texas Legislature banned films of his victories over whites for fear of more riots.

Johnson didn't merely offend the whites through his physical prowess, but also through his flaunting of wealth, racing cars, and most egregiously, associating with white women, often several at a time. This was also a great offense to many blacks.

Johnson was charged with violating the Mann Act in November 1912 for traveling across state lines with his white mistress, prior to the enactment of the Act. The Mann Act was designed to stop the interstate prostitution trade. It was not intended, and could not reasonably interpreted to apply to consensual adults. In 1913, Johnson fled because of the trumped up charges of violating the “Mann Act's” stipulations against transporting white women across state lines for prostitution.

During his exile from the U.S., Johnson lost his championship to a white man, Jess Willard, in Cuba in 1915. He returned to the U.S. on July 20, 1920 and was arrested.

Sentenced to Leavenworth in Kansas, Johnson was appointed athletic director of the prison. Upon his release, he returned to boxing, but only participated in exhibition fights after 1928.

Although married three times, Johnson never had children. He died in a car crash June 10, 1946, near Raleigh, North Carolina.

"Fighting Shirley Chisholm. Unbought and Unbossed."

Shirley Chisholm was born as Shirley Anita St. Hill on Nov. 30, 1924, in New York City to Barbadian parents.

At age three, Chisholm was sent to Barbados to live with her maternal grandmother, Emaline Seale, in Christ Church Barbados. She did not return until roughly seven years later when she arrived in New York City on May 19, 1934 aboard the S.S. Narissa. In her 1970 autobiography Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British -style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason.”

Chisholm earned her BA from Brooklyn College in 1946 and later earned her MA from Columbia University in elementary education in 1952. She was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

In 1949, she married Conrad Chisholm, a Jamaican who worked as a private investigator. Shirley and her husband participated in local politics, helping form the Bedford-Stuyvesant political League. In addition to participating in politics, Chisholm worked in the field of day care until 1959. In 1960, she started the Unity Democratic Club. The Unity Club was instrumental in mobilizing black and Hispanic voters.

In 1964 Chisholm ran for a state assembly seat. She won and served in the New York General Assembly from 1964 to 1968. During her tenure in the legislature, she proposed a bill to provide state aid to day-care centers and voted to increase funding for schools on a per-pupil basis. In 1968, after finishing her term in the legislature, Chisholm campaigned to represent New York's Twelfth Congressional District. Her campaign slogan was "Fighting Shirley Chisholm--Unbought and Unbossed." She won the election and became the first African American woman elected to Congress.

During her first term in Congress, Chisholm hired an all-female staff and spoke out for civil rights, women's rights, the poor and against the Vietnam War. In 1970, she was elected to a second term. She was a sought-after public speaker and cofounder of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She remarked that, "Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes."

On January 25, 1972, Chisholm announced her candidacy for president. She stood before the cameras and in the beginning of her speech she said,

"I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of that. I am not the candidate of any political bosses or special interests. I am the candidate of the people."

The 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami was the first major convention in which any woman was considered for the presidential nomination. Although she did not win the nomination, she received 151 of the delegates' votes. She continued to serve in the House of Representatives until 1982. She retired from politics after her last term in office. She has received many honorary degrees, and her awards include Alumna of the Year, Brooklyn College; Key Woman of the Year; Outstanding Work in the Field of Child Welfare; and Woman of Achievement.

Shirley Chisholm passed away on January 1, 2005.

We Are All Zimbabweans

James Kilgore wrote "We Are All Zimbabweans Now" during his six and a half years in prison in California. The book is based on his experiences living in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s. At that time Kilgore was a fugitive from American justice for his involvement with the activities of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

During his time on the run, Kilgore rejected the politics of small group violence, building a career as an educator, researcher and activist in Zimbabwe and South Africa. He wrote a number of books and academic articles during that period under the pseudonym John Pape.

After his arrest in Cape Town in 2002, he received letters of support from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and more than a hundred other individuals and organizations.

South African activist Trevor Ngwane wrote that Kilgore's time in South Africa
" showed that he had broken with terrorism as a method of struggle, preferring the hard patient slog of building among ordinary workers, in the trade unions and among working-class youth. He exchanged his guns and masks for pen and paper. He stopped living between the cracks and in the night; he built a new life, took care of his family and contributed to the struggle of the workers."

We Are All Zimbabweans Now was sent out of prison as a 595 page handwritten manuscript which was entered onto computer by a team of Kilgore's friends and family. The author currently resides in Illinois, U.S. with his wife and two sons. He's busy tranferring several other novels he penned in prison to computer.

Six In The Morning

Men love strip clubs! If there is something I have learned in life, it's that there is no easier way to get a smile out of a man than by mentioning strip joints or strippers. We love to discuss whom we saw and what we did. It's a private world that men relish and women fear.

We come creeping into the house at 6:00am, quiet as a mouse, trying our best to remain inconspicuous. The last thing you want is a confrontation -- especially since you pumped a few beers into your system.

But no matter how quiet you thought you were being, on go the lights and there's your woman, staring at you as though she's expecting the ground to open up and swallow you whole.

"Where were you? You were at that strip bar with Dj Jesus, weren't you? I've always hated that stupid Neanderthal. So did you like all those breasts? How can you disrespect me like that?"

And now you have to spend the rest of the night assuring her that you were just having fun with the boys.

WHY IS SHE SO MAD?

So what is it about strip joints that tick women off so much? Well, for starters, let's place you in your woman's shoes and vice versa. If your woman went out to male strip joints with all her girlfriends and came home somewhat liquored up, wouldn't you have a tingly feeling more commonly known as jealousy rushing through your body? Wouldn't you wonder if she did some fondling, or how many penises were being waved in her face?

Besides that, some women begin feeling insecure because they figure that if you have a pair of breasts to fondle at home, then why would you need to go somewhere and ogle other women? I know, it's not like that, but hey, just because we're the most civilized species, that doesn't always mean things will make perfect sense.

Most women question their men’s need to go to a strip club. “Why do they want to look at other women? Am I not pretty enough?” Most men want to go because of the atmosphere. It is a mix of a dance club and sports bar with girls walking around in costumes. It is a different mix of atmospheres that you cannot find anywhere but a strip club. It is relaxed enough that you can sit back, talk with your friends, and still have music and entertainment. Some men do not even talk to or watch the strippers when they go. They sit and talk with each other and turn away any dancers that approach. I have seen it more times than I can count. You would also be surprised at the amount of couples that go to strip clubs.

Do what I did. Buy a pole!

My Ire!

"I smoke, I drink and I cuss! I am not racist but I don't trust Nigerians.

I own a lot of lighters that I never bought...(a lot)...

I have loved women I never kissed.

I am moody. I know a lot of people. Most of them detest me. The rest aren't sure.

I am pa$$ionate about my money. I am cheap.

I am a dad and a papa. I have two baby mamas; And no I don't hate them....anymore...

I drive what I feel. I wear what's clean.

I don't care about bills or credit. I always pay cash and keep my receipts.

I eat what I can.

I sleep when you work. You work!

I've been called a bully, and a thug. I am handsome but intimidating!

I've been screamed at by many.

I know many women have screamed my name. I know many more will scream "Why!?!"

I have siblings whom I love. I have friends who once hated me.

I vote but I never win.

I listen when I talk.

I have a lot of tolerance in opinion. I have an opinion on tolerance..(some of this shit just ain't right! wtf?)..

I know your sister. I know your sister's friends.

I know how to spell magistrate. I've written checks at the courthouse.

I have a lot of keys.

I always seem to lose my keys. I can't find my remote.

I am tired"