Jrnl Enry No. 4.3.2001

I can’t get no love in New York City I just simply talk to young ladies and that’s it. I don’t know if it’s because it’s in a bar scene or what.

I talked to Kelly and Amber at Justin’s last Tuesday night. I noticed Amber the moment she walked by me. Her face, the face of a beautiful black woman, had me as soon as I layed eyes on her. Notice, I said face. A beautiful calm face she had. Her hair, dark black; lips, full and wide; she had the face of a woman I wanted to love, to be my wife. Her face told me, “I may have graduated from college. I definitely have a job. I am too beautiful not to have a boyfriend so don’t even ask the question. Though I understand the plight of the ghetto and black people, and I love my black peoples; especially those who are from the ghetto and act like it (forgive them, for they know not what they do). I choose to carry myself in a classier manner. But I am black, will never forget where I came from, where I have been, and I know where I am going.” Her face told me all of this.

Her face, not her ass, not her tidies, but her face; her face even told me that her favorite movie was The Color Purple. Knawl, she told that on this night that I am writing this. I thought she was such a beautiful young lady that once I got the chance to speak with her and her friend, and I asked her name, I stored it into my hard drive memory along with her beautiful face.

Amber is the name. I saw Amber and her friend on this night after I had spoken with them last week. Amber’s friend recognized me and waved and I smiled and waved back. They started walking toward my way with Amber in the lead position. She looked right through me as if I wasn’t there. I spoke, “how are you doin’ Amber?” I shook her hand. Her friend remarks, “that’s good, now what’s my name?” I shrugged my shoulders with a smile on my face to let her know that I couldn’t remember her name. I did remember her telling me that she graduated from Duke, which I mentioned to her a little later in another conversation.

I got out of both of them that they have boyfriends. I asked Amber in a desperate move to try and expand our conversation, “so Amber, if you didn’t have a boyfriend I’d be the perfect gentleman for you right?” She said, “I don’t know because I don’t know anything about you.” I told her to ask me something, which she asked what was my favorite movie? I told her I couldn’t name a favorite movie but I like drama. She told me her favorite movie was The Color Purple. I told her that was a good one. I then asked why did she liked that movie so much? She either didn’t hear me or ignored the question, as her friend Kelly and she began to make motions toward the other side of the room or just the hell away from me.

Now here it is, me, I have met a beautiful young lady, a college graduate, a third grade teacher who teaches in Harlem, who is from New Jersey, who’s name is Amber. But yee who has said you can’t meet a beautiful intelligent, bride to be at a bar, oh, yee are so wrong. Amber has damn near everything I am looking for. For who has ever said you can’t meet a beautiful intelligent young man at a bar, yee are also to the left, the opposite of right. But if you ask Amber who or what has she met in me, she would tell you that she doesn’t recall who I am, or that she doesn’t know anything but a guy from Justin’s.

This leaves me the question of, “what are black women looking for?” I know I was looking good on both Tuesday nights that I saw and spoke with Amber. I looked in the mirror on both nights before I left my apartment, and said to myself, “Damn, I am fine, just look at me, WHAT!” My voice elevating in highness as I got near the end of the statement. My friend Burton would be able to imitate what I am talking about if you read this to him.

But Amber ignored my subtle and polite advances to let her know that I was a little passed liking what I know about her, and a little behind loving what I know about her. Could it be this problem that black women in New York City seem to have with young black men in New York City that caused her to casually ignore me and my advances. She knows nothing about me; nothing about what I ain’t, and nothing about what I is. She doesn’t know that I – old, that I am also a college graduate with his bachelor’s degree in Accounting. She doesn’t know that I work in Brooklyn, and that I make a decent salary. I got health, dental, and vision benefits, two weeks paid vacation and five sick days. She doesn’t know that I’m secretly on the lookout for a wife and not just a fuck or two. She doesn’t know that I am from Ohio, and not one of these New York Niggaz that women seem to write off automatically as bullshit. She doesn’t know that investing in order to have a secure financial future is on my brain almost constantly. And last but now least, she doesn’t know my name.

I think I’ll answer my own question as to why she doesn’t know these things about me. “….., she is just not interested in you for one, for two, she told you she has a boyfriend.” I could accept either one of those on a particular night from a particular woman. But this seems to be the case with every black woman I see as beautiful and worthy enough for me to try and converse with them. This leads me to the question of what do black women want from black men in New York City.

I find that it is a shame on these black women’s part that I am a single, black, intelligent young man without an intelligent black woman by my side planning our futures together. Black women complain about the lack of intelligent, good looking black males. Well Amber you had one right in front of your face begging you to try and get to know him because he thinks you are so beautiful. By the time you read this, if you ever read this and you want to “RECOGNIZE” that I’m “SAM SNEED!” Guess what, TOO LATE! But you don’t care cause like you said your man works late at JP Morgan.

Jrnl Entry No. 3.26.2001

I wish I was white so that I could share in the joys of their world and answer all these dumb ass questions that this Columbian chick, who is the accounts payable clerk, keeps asking me. She is so different thinking than African Americans; well not African Americans, but of different thinking than me, who happens to be African American. Like, “So …., what do you think of the controversy in New York over the Black Artist picture “Yo Mamma’s Last Supper?”, this picture of a naked black woman representing Jesus standing in front of the table at the Last Supper before the 12 disciples. I told her that I didn’t care because for one, I’m not religious and for two I just don’t care about bullshit like that. It’s just a picture, GOD DAMN!

I told her one day that I was going to see it before a meeting that I had with some friends. The next day she asked did I see it and I said “no I didn’t have time.” She said “Good!” I asked her why did she say that. She said that she thought the picture was a bunch of bullshit not art; this coming from her mouth and she claims that she wants to be an artist. Art is free expression of whatever the hell is on your mind. If an artist wanted to paint a picture of Jesus witt his dick in some woman’s ass, while God is fuckin her in her pussy, with Kane and Able’s dicks in both her hands, and Job’s dick comin in her mouth to get back at his wife for all the negativity she spread trying to shatter his faith in God; then so be it. I don’t give a fuck. That picture will probably never be displayed anywhere not even in the privacy of the artist’s own home without some religious fucks trying to burn it down, and these words will probably never be published for the public to read, but so be it.

I did make it that weekend to see the picture and it was no big deal to me. It was a beautiful picture. I wrote in the comment book that the controversy stemmed from the Ebonics title “Yo Momma’s Last Supper.” It stemmed from a woman representing Jesus, and a black woman at that. If the title had been different and it had been a white woman in the picture and white men, there probably wouldn’t have been any controversy.

The next question she asked me was, “So …., what do you think of the Kids in California shooting up the school and killing two of the other kids?” I said, “you don’t want to know what I think!” I was laughing to give it a cool overtone so she wouldn’t try to dig deeper and really make me go there and possibly get myself fired or have no one speaking to me at all in the office. We all don’t speak much anyway but it would be really ugly up in here if I said what I thought about that shooting. I think what Malcolm X thought about the shooting of JFK. “IT’S JUSTICE!” “Chickens Comin’ Home To Roost!” Because when kids in gangs all over America, especially in LA California were doing drive-bys killing each other in worse ways and bigger numbers than the Columbine Shooting and the San Diego Shooting, no one was screaming about gun control and such and such. And no one was saying a damn thing about keep the kids off the streets or nothing to solve the problem of gang violence. They talked about it on CNN sure, but no laws were put into effect about guns and selling guns to kids or gang control laws. But now that little white kids are taking daddy’s gun to school and shooting up the other little suburban white kids for picking on him, now we want to talk about gun control. Now we want to put laws into effect to take action when Johnny says he is gonna kill up the school, but he’s only joking. No such laws were put into effect when gang violence broke out and murder took place, and they knew another murder would take place as retaliation. So what do I think? I don’t give a fuck. Nobody gave a fuck about us when we were and still are killing each other with guns by the hundreds or thousands each year so I don’t give a fuck if a white kid goes to school and kills 2, 3, or 10 other white kids. That’s what all them mutha fuckas get for trying to have those little perfect like communities.

I grew up in public school. I got picked on and even got into a couple of fights that I didn’t start, but I think it’s the best thing for a kid because it represents the adversities of real life in the real world. Look at me, I turned out alright: college graduate, staff accountant for a small private corporation in Brooklyn, a good father, and would be husband if I had a wife, and a product of PUBLIC SCHOOL. If you go around to the little suburbs around my city, they’ll tell you that the school I graduated from, Warren G Harding is the worst school, was and still is and they’d never send their kids there. It wasn’t that bad. I should know because I went there.

The next question that she asked me was, “So …., did you see the Oscars last night?” I didn’t even answer even though I was gonna tell her that, “the Oscar Awards do not respect black actors.” But the gay guy jumped in and they started talking about Julia Roberts winning the award for best actress for Erin Brockovich. Best Picture I think was Gladiator, which was a very good movie. But Hurricane was also a very good movie that didn’t get a look at the Oscars. American Beauty with Kevin Spacey won all the awards one year. Now Kevin Spacey is a very good actor but that movie, even though I haven’t seen it yet, it is a stupid movie. If that movie got Oscars, The Best Man should have gotten Oscars, The Brothers should get Oscars, Samuel L. Jackson should have gotten an Oscar for Shaft or one of the various movies he played in, and maybe not Shaft. Wesley Snipes should have gotten an Oscar for New Jack City if the movie Traffic got Oscars. But plain and simple, the Oscars do not respect black film. If they have some type of hidden agenda like you must be an actor who has appeared in so many movies over a period of so many years before being considered for an Oscar, or the director has to have directed for so many years, I wish they’d let us brothas and sistas know so we will understand why neither Denzel Washington nor Spike Lee got an Oscar for Malcolm X the movie, which Denzel played the part excellently, and Spike also directed it excellently. It got nominated for all its excellence, but no Oscar.

I think blacks should ban the Oscars since they make it obvious that our stories and actors are ban from their selection process. Sure they give us one every ten or so years, and one or two of our movies get nominated every five years or so. But the movies that do win, when compared to black films of the same caliber, it is a mystery why we don’t get recognized. I’m not saying the movies that do get recognized are garbage because they are not. Erin Brokovich was a very good movie as well as Gladiator, as well as the special effects in The Matrix. But Malcolm X, The Best Man, Menace II Society, Hurricane, Men of Honor, etc were good movies as well for which, not a single Oscar, was won for none of them. This is why I tell people that I don’t go see movies if they are not about the black experience, with a black main character or story line. I saw Gladiator at the $1.50 show. I saw Erin Brokovich on video after having sex with a white girl.

America doesn’t support our film and television shows so we shouldn’t support theirs neither. How come every time a black show comes on NBC or ABC or CBS, it gets cancelled within six months to a year? It is because Americans aren’t watching the shows giving them ratings; therefore, they get shipped to UPN or WB where they are satisfied with the ratings of mostly blacks watching the show.

My cousin had the nerve to ask me do I watch Will and Grace? I layed my speech on him. Shit, ask Will and Grace do they watch The Steve Harvey Show or The Hughley’s, etc.? I don’t even watch T.V. and the statement up above is one reason. The other reason is that I love the black experience and the way of life as it relates to me. Will and Grace do not relate to me. Alley McBeal does not relate to me. But Jerry Seinfield, even though I didn’t watch the show as it appeared in regular episodes, I watched and still do watch the reruns; it related to everybody, a great show for anyone. It was about nothing, like being at a stop-light picking your nose while the girl that you’re dating and trying to have sex with pulls up beside you. And because she sees you committing this act which she thinks is disgusting, you now have no chance with her. Everyone can relate to that situation even if it’s not the same set of circumstances.

Now black shows may not relate to white people, and that is cool. So I say support your own and what relates to you. NBC should understand this when they put a black show on the air, that every show is not gonna have the effect of The Cosby Show. The Cosby Show didn’t represent even half of black American lives at the time it was showing and it still doesn’t represent half of our lives as I am writing this. It had high ratings because blacks watched it for the simple fact that it was about the only black show on television at the time. And white people watched it because it was a good majority of their lives being represented on the screen. They related to it. We show their shows love and their movies, but we get no love back in return, so I say fuck em, let’s stop. I’ve stopped. Now just imagine if everyone thought like me to not go see Hannibal the first week out or period, in the theatres, to just wait for the video, and if we supported our movies the first weekend out and weekends after that, and we stopped watching their T.V. shows and just watched our own like most of them do. Maybe we could even up the stakes a little in ratings of television shows and No. 1 movies at the theatres. Imagine if we would have stopped watching MTV waiting and searching for Michael Jackson and Thriller to come on which was about the only black artist they showed a video for back in the 80s. We would be a force to be dealt with. But if we keep on supporting and watching them and waiting for them to show us some love, nothing will change and we will never get any love. I guess it’s like the saying, “if you are looking for a woman, stop searching, and she will find you, and ya’ll will live happily ever after.

Jrnl Entry No. 9.11.2001

I’m over my friend Carol Ann’s house in Jersey. I spent the night as I often do and go to work in the early morning; however, I am unemployed at this time. I got fired the weekend before Labor Day, which is all well and good because I just wasn’t feeling working at The Italian Job in Brooklyn. I had an interview with a lady at Robert Half Financial Employment Service this afternoon. I woke up at 8:50 A.M. to go and move my car from this meter lot which goes into effect at 9 A.M. I turned my radio on and Starr and Miss Jones were talking about something blowing up, and I thought they were talking about New York, but the details were sketchy because they had to get back to playing music. When I get back to Carol Ann’s house, she is up watching the news. What had happened was two air planes crashed into the World Trade Center Twin Towers. The World Trade Center was bombed back in 1993, and now here in 2001, two planes crash into the twin towers. I guess The World Trade Center has bad luck.

I was thinking that I could still get back into New York through the Lincoln Tunnel, go home and change my clothes, and take the train to 42^nd Street to my interview. I was gonna leave at 11 A.M. but I planned on leaving at 10:30 due to this activity in the city which would probably cause a lot of traffic. At around 9:30 A.M. it was reported that the Lincoln Tunnel, George Washington Bridge, and all ways into New York were shut down.

So I’m stuck over her house. At this point, it was just the two planes crashed into the two buildings. I’m thinking lightly as always that it is no big deal, laughing it off like fuck the world because my world is not perfect or anywhere near where I would like it to be at the age of .. I figure, I’ll be stuck here for the day or maybe a few hours and then I can go home to my apartment in Long Island City Queens, New York. About a half hour later, they report that the Pentagon has been bombed also, a mall in Washington also. The White House was evacuated. New York is on full Terrorist alert. All planes nationally have been shut down on flights, and International flights have been diverted to Canada.

So now I’m thinking that it’s getting a little serious. Some muta fuckas are really trying to attach The United States and start some shit that they are not gonna be able to get out of their ass, because they have already taken the laxative, and the shit is BOILING, bot bubbling in their intestines. Whoever, has brought this shit on themselves and their bodies are just gonna explode from inside out with shit once The United States gets a hold of the fact that they started this shit.

A little after that, one of the Twin Towers collapsed from another explosion. I’m still taking it a little lightly because that is my nature of thinking right now. I’m even thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea if I died right now. I was just thinking yesterday of blowing my brains out but I just can’t go out like that. I can’t deprive all the people who love me of my life. While I am a selfish mutha fucka, I am also a proud mutha fucka. And pride is what is keeping me here in New York trying to get into this music industry or get employed at some African American company like FUBU. But FUBU has no practical method of hiring so they tell me, which means that I will probably never get a job there. All the record companies have no hiring except internal. And that would be a real pick me up right now to work with something that has to do with music. I applied at ASCAP Publishing company but they don’t seem to be taking my interest in their company seriously.

But any way my life is fucked up. Carol Ann says that I am depressed and I need to start living. Well living to me is doing something for a living that you enjoy. I enjoy music but I can’t get no way into music it seems. I want to work for a Hip Hop oriented company, but none of them seem to hire anybody. I can’t live in that way. Living is also having a family and being able to provide for them: one woman to love, one or two children to cherish, etc. I got a kid but I had a girl who I don’t get along with so we are not together. I see my kid, Janelle every three months for two weeks. I have no family, no woman, and not even a job, let alone a job that I would love to be working on. So nothing is working for me right now; therefore, I can’t just live. How I want to live, I can’t live, so what is the point. But pride keeps me going, staying here with nothing working as I wanted it to or hoped it would. But anyway.

A half hour after that, right as I was standing there watching the TV drinking a Budweiser, the other World Trade Center Twin Tower collapsed right in front of my face. Chills went down my spine as the news reporters started saying, “oh my god is this live?”

Now It’s serious, war is imminent. Mutha fuckas have died in that building, no joke. I’m just watching this shit unfold in front of my face on TV. At my old job, they could probably see all of this happening right across the water in full view. I started to call there, but fuck them. I had no friend there to call. So now both World Trade Center buildings are down. This is gonna be on the news all day and they are reporting that some terrorist, Solovon Laudon, said there would be some type of terrorist attack on the United States because of the support shown for Isreal.

Now I’m not a history buff, and personally, if it is not affecting me or someone I know or I am nowhere near the shit, I don’t care about the shit. But there is some situation with the Isrealites and the Palestenians. Where the Palestenians keep starting shit for whatever reason, throwing rocks and shit at the Isrealites. In response, the Isrealites shoot the shit out of them. Now if you ask me, the mutha fuckas throwing the rocks are kind of stupid, just like the mutha fuckas taking over these planes and crashing them into shit are stupid. This little shit they are doing is minor, which most protest are. The Civil Rights Movement was minor, but it was done in a smart way. Except for a few exceptions, the shit was done peacefully and strategically. Like the Bus Boycott, “if you ain’t gonna let us ride the bus in peace, then we ain’t gonna ride and you gonna lose money.” SIMPLE!

But these mutha fuckas are waging war with air plane high-jacks, and mini-major explosions of buildings; this, against a country with tanks, air plane fire fighters, atomic bombs, etc. They are not gonna win. They can’t win against the Isrealites, they damn sure can’t win against the United States. But then again, maybe they are not stupid. They have a cause, and they are willing to protest, risking their lives for what they believe. Most people have something that they would do the same for. It seems dumb to me because I am not in their situation and I don’t understand their plight. I am being ethnocentric.

Now we are in a national state of emergency because these terrorist mutha fuckas are blowing up shit all around the United States. It was reported that 164 people died on one of the planes that crashed into The World Trade Center. It is being reported that in Palestine, 3000 mutha fuckas are over there celebrating what is going on in the United States. What has the United States directly done to them? These Palestinian mutha fuckas have a twisted view of thinking and because they are celebrating, I have no choice but to rejoice when the U.S. drops a bomb on they asses. Well I probably won’t rejoice, but neither will I be sad.

As of now, shit has calmed down a little and they are just reporting on shit that has happened. But I bet my ass that something else is gonna happen major before the day is over. Maybe the whole New York will just start collapsing: the whole Manhattan Island, Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island. What if it all just started sinking into the water? Now that will be some shit. That would probably be some good shit for me and music because all the bullshit, can’t get a job, or get your music heard by record companies in New York: Bad Boy, Def Jam, Universal, etc. All the record companies will be shut the fuck down. I would leave from here in Jersey and start a record company in Cleveland. The music industry would be wide open for business. With all of New York dead, there would be a world of opportunity for rappers, producers, singers, etc. I would start a smart, good quality, entertainment company and get rich baby.

But then again, if New York is shut down, the stock market will shut down and a lot of money would be lost, but hell not all money would be lost. I would be on top of the world in music if New York went down, believe that. It’s a shame probably that I would be thinking like that. But fuck it, the music industry is a dog eat dog world. So if the only way I can get in and live my life for what I love is for mutha fuckas to die, that is the way it’s gotta be. And still at the end of all this, I don’t give a damn, I ain’t got a job. I ain’t got an inkling of a production deal. I ain’t got nothing.

Watrina said to me yesterday, I don’t take aids seriously and life seriously. I have my own little precautions about AIDS sure, but not as precautious as she would like me to be. When I got off the phone with her, I thought to myself, “to live is to have death upon you at any moment.” You think those mutha fuckas who were in that building could have taken precautions to those planes crashing this morning, NO! I guess I am lucky or blessed to have lived .. years, have a beautiful daughter, college education, nice size dick that keeps me with somewhat of a healthy sex life, family to love me, and all the other shit that I should be thankful for. I am thankful a little, but on the other end of my thankfulness is, “if the shit would have happened to me right now at this point in my life, it wouldn’t make a difference to me. By my standard of living, my life ain’t shit.”

Jrnl Entry No. 3.9.2001

Watching the NAACP Image Awards where Bill Clinton was awarded an award for being a “Black President.” I saw one actress that I was very fond of, “Alfre Woodard” get an award and kiss a white man before she went up to receive it. Now I have no problem with this on the surface. But deeper down there is a problem within African American people. We as men and women do not trust each other. Black women think that most black men are too broke to satisfy their financial needs. They think that we are players not to be trusted in a serious relationship. Black men see black women as money hungry broke hoes with attitudes. And these perceptions we have of each other, which are true in a lot of cases, is destroying us.

Have you ever seen Julia Roberts with a black man hangin’ off her arm at the Academy Awards? Have you ever seen Tom Cruise with a black woman on his arm at the Academy Awards? NO,you have never seen and probably never will see it. Those people stick with their brothers and sistas. And I’m sure Julia Roberts has been burned, dogged, etc. by white men, but yet in still she has not cast them astray when wanting to be in a relationship in her fame or as a regular ordinary white woman. The same for Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis (been dogged by white women), but who did they have on their arm at Academy Awards time, their white women wives Nicole Kiddman and Demi Moore.

Michael Jackson will never have a black woman hangin from his arm. Michael is either gay or afraid to have sex, (He’s weird because from age four he’s had people chasing after him ripping off his clothes.) but whatever the case he feels safer doing whatever he does with a white woman. And while I accept this weirdness and mental state of confusion to a point, I can’t excuse him wanting to look white and catering on a social level to mostly white and other non-blacks while continuing to make R&B traditional black music. Janet Jackson tries to keep it real by dating Puerto Ricans, though not white and close to light skin black, they still are not African American like her.

Black people, when we get some money, we see our own people as looking for hand-outs. Many people don’t hide the fact that they want something from you if you are well off. Many women make it obvious that they out for the dollars of a star or any man that will give it to them. And that is not just black women, but mostly all women. But because white women have been portrayed in a better light throughout American History, they are not marked as gold diggers the way sistas are, which is probably a reason famous football and basketball players marry white and get played just the same for that alimony and child support.

I really can’t come with any logical explanation why sistas with fame and money marry white men. Brothers don’t particularly go out looking for a woman with money, they just want the finest woman they can possibly get their hands on, and if she happens to be rich all the better. But whatever the reasons, men or women, we seem to be the only race that dates and marries frequently outside of race. Puerto Ricans even stick to they own, many of them won’t date black. Non-blacks are the majority of the population in the U.S. but still you see more of us than them dating and marrying outside of our ethic background. Here I am talkin all this about interracial marriage and dating, and I’ll probably end up dating and/or marrying a white woman.

I’ve been going to Barnes & Noble book store on Broadway and 66^th St right across the street from Lincoln Center. They got a copy of Langston Hughes “Simple’s Uncle Sam” back into the store. I finished reading it. “Simple”, a fictional character of Langston Hughes was a real down to earth black man livin’ in Harlem. For some reason I can’t get enough of Langston Huges. I picked up a book of letters exchanged back and forth between he and Carl Van Vectchen, some man he met at some party who got him published and if it wasn’t for him, Langston probably wouldn’t have ever been.

I also saw a real picture of Langston. He was high yella with bad hair (naturally curly hair). You all know what privileges came along with being high yella with bad hair back in the day. This is probably why he met so many people and seen and done so many things, and probably one of the reasons Carl latched on to him and helped him out. Langston had a rival back in the day whose last name was Cullen. He was dark skinned with good hair (naturally African black and nappy hair). Now he wrote books, etc. but I’ve never heard of him probably neither have you.

I happen to think Langston was pushed and able to write plays, work for many newspapers, etc. because of the fact that he was high yella, and it helped him a great deal in life. But damn you can’t front on his writing talent. This guy was a genius at telling fictional stories / prose. Reading his fiction you’d swear it was coming from a lady or man who had these experiences with racism in life. Like “The Ways of White Folks.” While fictional, these stories actually happened to somebody during those times I know. And like “Simple”. “Simple” is all from Langston’s brain, but it’s so real of accounts about life and experiences of a black man. INCREDIBLE! Reading Langston and about him inspires me to stay in New York regardless of my money, women and social problems. He inspires me to keep on making my music and keep developing it in hopes that one day I’ll be discovered and much of my material will be put out for the real Hip Hop headz to love.