Good Music Moment

Q-Tip earns my genius award for teaching Norah Jones how to use her inner funk for this great song off THE RENAISSANCE. Enjoy

Cards and Looms

Disclaimer: A thought of a loom came to mind, and a card game thought stepped in right next to it.  Here is the result.

I fold.

My heart is a ball of twine, rough threads jumbled and looped together so tightly that their weight in common looms a minor weapon.

I fold.

The day you opened your heart to me, I felt cold chills race up my spine, the nape of my neck their finish line.  You had me.  At.  Hello.  God help me, that’s so cliché.

I fold.

You won my heart through the first ever moral sleight-of-hand; you were just--you.  Musically, verbally, emotionally, you did card tricks with my happiness, slid me an ace of truth, and sealed the perfect game for my heart.  Trump cards from life’s tricky hands sliced at me, but you slyly winked and deftly passed a smooth little queen of hearts to love me through the cut.

I fold.

Partnering with you was the perfect game.  I can’t be a solo player anymore.

I fold.

The twine inside me unravels itself.  Rough surfaces are loved to smoothness, deeper cores gently freed.  Love of mine, I’m free to love you back.

I fold.

We deal.

Romance in a Starbucks

She is beautiful.
He is smitten.
She likes attention.
Puppy dogs show less infatuation.
She wants more attention.
HE walks by.
She likes the walk.
He sees HIM.
He sees her watching HIM.
Puppy dog eyes look sad.
He shrinks; he disappears.
She wants attention.
HE will do just fine.

Love, like and lust.

Writing Exercise for a Distracted, Sleep-Deprived Writer

Sit straight and tall as if a Catholic nun has just rapped your back with a ruler.

Breathe deeply.

As you inhale again, arch your back and allow your ribcage to expand as fully as possible.

By now your focus is returning slowly.  Most of “writer’s block” is tension-based; rhythmic breathing and concentrating on something besides the page for just a few minutes often does the trick.  Need more?  Continue as listed below:

Stretch your arms open and wide as you inhale deeply.  Watch for passersby who ignore your open and ever-nearing arms—no lawsuits, right?

Take a short, brisk walk; the increased blood flow and new environs will invigorate you.  Keep the distance short enough to avoid wasting time away from the page and fighting even more fatigue.

AAAAHHH!!!  I don’t know about you, but I feel better!  Honestly speaking, I wrote this posting as I did everything on this list.  Let me know if this “writing exercise” helps you, too!

The Questions, The Questions*

*Shouts to the Soulquarians and Common for rocking a cold instrumental, the music track that inspires this post.

If the first Black President allows his predecessor's sins against the nation to continue, should I blame him completely for the resulting hurts to the nation's conscience? Even if I voted for him?!?

Did Michael Jackson's family plan to dump the funeral bill on the city of Los Angeles, or is some overly reactive reporter making speculation to boost his paper's or its website's readership?

Does any layperson/non-scientist research the chemistry behind many of the current "green" projects to ensure their alleged "lower ecological impact" and "gentler carbon footprint" on Earth? Would further research verify the cult of marketing's push toward expensive means to justify the "planet-friendly" ends, or would we see a slick scam goin' on?

If religion is not faith, and faith is not religion, does either survive absent the presence of the other?

If the Bible defines love as "to obey God," do we truly love one another if we require ungodly actions to prove its presence?

Name your most endeared and enduring deadly sin.

If sound travels fastest through a solid, why can't toll booth operators hear me through their Plexiglass and steel booths?

Who trusts the Enzyte commercials? Are young men getting them on the streets as easily as they get Viagra and Cialis? Does anyone see the danger in mixing a product that warns of possible blindness, degraded heart condition and liver concerns with alcohol or Red Bull? Speaking of Red Bull, what kind of legal speed does the drink contain to keep a person awake and w-i-r-e-d for hours?

Honestly, these are NOT rhetorical questions.

Need Your Answers

What is Christianity today?

Can someone define "being spiritual?"

Are faith and religion identical?

I know my answers. Tell me what you believe. See the headphones? I'm eager to hear you!

The Best Welcomes Have Theme Music

Welcome back, friends! My last post was quite a long time ago--in blog terms--so I offer my deepest thanks to you for giving my lil ole blog your time and attention. Life has been a wild, crazy ride over the last few months, in good and bad ways, and I'll fill you in along the next few weeks. Change is a function of growth, and this blog's growth in this next quarter-year will shine a light on my personal growth. I've lost some "weight" where it matters most: INSIDE. My mind and heart have gained some "extra muscle" along the way. We'll talk about life in America here, but you'll need to hold one thought close to heart as you follow along: LIFE is beautiful even when it's ugly. I'm talking all about the pretty-ugly-sweet-funky-amazing things that life brings and that life coaxes from me, from us and from the world. Speak your mind; this is the Hall of Free Speech--with an emphasis on FREE. I plan to grow with every comment, to build from every conversation.

Thanks for listening before and for returning now. Enjoy my little "gift" to you.

The best welcomes have theme music, I say. Enjoy mine.

The Game of Kings: How Hip Hop's Embrace of Chess is Uplifting Young Minds

This ABC News report is a welcome break from the norm of misunderstandings and bad presumptions about hip hop culture. I wanted to do a long writeup on my take, but my heart wouldn't allow me to chance taking away from such a great story. Enjoy.



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Now playing: Bootsy's Rubber Band - The Pinocchio Theory
via FoxyTuness

Life in Marvelous Times...and Great Contradictions

A Phoenix Rising... From the Ashes

My wife and I talked over lunch about the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony and its effects on us personally and on societies local and global.  What she said struck me so powerfully that I had to quote her:

"This is the opposite--this is the antithesis--of 9/11.  What I mean is that what I felt that morning, the thought that history was changing, that American history would be marked pre-9/11 and post-9/11; and that the way the world and all Americans see this country would shift in some amazing--and even scary--ways.  This day is the opposite of that, in a way.  It's...like a phoenix rising from the ashes."

I formally invite DJ Jay Smooth to expound on the thought (and no, I don't agree with each of his points, but the overwhelming theme is on target):

Why I'm Happy, Why I'm Not Satisfied

We have permission to be happy while maintaining our practical perspective.  America has signed a treaty with her children, a promise to learn from the cornucopia of our past blunders by walking in Dr. Martin Luther King's--and, for that matter, my mother's--dream to live as humanly and as humanely as we REALLY can in our country's grand area.  Our problems are far from over in many ways, but we--America--are walking our talk again.

Let freedom ring.  Keep walking your talk.  Love somebody just because God loves him or her as much as He loves you.  Talk about tough topics with people--instead of setting people up to look like racists because they don't understand your perspective or your culture.  Open your mind enough to see another human's perspective, and you might change your mind about a few things.  The work IS a part of the dream, believe it or not...

God bless you.  Vaya con Dios.  Salaam 'Alaykum (السلام عليكم).

If I have misspelled or misused the beautiful words of your parent language, forgive me and correct me.  It's my pleasure to learn.  That, as it turns out, is another part of THE DREAM.

Zen Perspective for a Christian'sThinking

RELAX. I am not picking up the "internet guru" label to plaster on my blog. Seth Godin happens to be one of my favorite bloggers, and I hope that God allows me the chance to meet him over a cup of good caffeine during 2009. I mention him because his writing is simply brilliant, brilliantly simple. Is he a Zen thinker? Beats me. Does his perspective help to spark my imagination? Constantly. I would feel remiss if I didn't give a friend a link to his page, so enjoy. Let me know if you agree with me.