Jrnl Entry No. 3.31.2003

Over the weekend, I was supposed to spend it with my girlfriend but what has been happening in the last month or so is that our weekend plans have been getting botched up into arguments and us not spending the time together. See about a month before that I went on an escapade. I wasn’t feeling Watrina at the time because it always seems as if I’m the one giving her all of the attention. I love her very much and would spend most if not all my time with her if I could. I’m always trying to be around her following her like a puppy dog, and she doesn’t mind so I guess you could say that is a good thing. She could tell me to buzz off so she could do her own thing with her friends, male or female, sexual, non-sexual, whatever. But she never complains about me being there. But on the other hand she never invites me there neither. I invite myself: go to her job and meet her and then maybe we’ll go out to eat; to spend the Saturday with her and her daughter if she is not gone with her father; to spend time or the night at my house, I always ask her for these things. She never does it on her own which makes me feel like she is not that concerned at all with spending quality time with me; she can take it or leave it, it doesn’t matter. So I said, “Fuck Watrina”! I’m not asking her shit: to spend time with her, to see her, to call her.

I was kicking it with my new buddy Metaphor “Simile” “MS” Kipperton, this rapper I met on the New York Music scene who I gave some beats to and because this girl from Youngstown Ohio where I went to college at, managed him before, paid for some of his studio time; through her, he connected with me. He is well known on the scene so he gets in all of the spots for free and most of the time, would get me in for free also, so it was all cool. We were goin’ out on Saturday night to ”CREAM”, Sunday nights to “CLUB NV” or “TIKI ROOM”, Monday nights to “LOTUS”, Tuesday nights to SESSA”. I was actually having fun, living, which ever since I got here to New York, I haven’t been living because I’ve been too broke, paying bills, or not knowing where to go in the first place.

At this point, I had stopped paying my car note, I didn’t pay half my rent for one month because my electricity was out and my landlord didn’t seem as if he was making a strong effort to get the lights back on through electrical work that he had to have done. I also stopped paying my credit card bill which was draining me of $200 a month. So I had a little money to spend. I bought me a Mitchell and Ness throw-back basketball jersey for $325.00 to have the look of the male music industry scene in at least one outfit.

I wasn’t paying Watrina too much attention. And she didn’t seem to be making a big fuss out of it until like three weeks in, after I didn’t go to her nieces birthday party that she thought I planned on attending to meet most of her whole family and plus she had a magic show by a guy that I hooked up with and my other friend Zero was there. I didn’t go. After that weekend, she started really trying to see me but I was still like no, because every time we see each other, I have to wait around for her to do something else. I wasn’t waiting anymore. If she wanted to see me, no waiting till 10 P.M. or 12 A.M. is what I was on.

After that tirade, we got back on schedule a little, except for that the two weekends after that, we planned on spending Saturday night together, but we never did. One night she claimed she went to the Bronx to party with her friends in a hole in a wall bar and didn’t have cab fare back to Queens. The next weekend, which was actually the Friday and Saturday before this day that I’m writing this; Friday she claimed she wanted to see her daughter before she would send her off the next day to her father for a day and half. So at 10 P.M. she went home and told me to call her in an hour. I went home and shaped my hair up because I had this party in mind we could go to of another music industry friend who was promoting the party and the tickets were $20.00. I called her at 11 P.M. and she was not ready, saying that her daughter wasn’t home when she got there so she didn’t want to leave yet. And she knows that at these parties and clubs in New York, that if you don’t get on line by 12 A.M., chances are you won’t get in till 2 A.M. or later and the parties are over at 4 A.M.

So this was another case where she would have me waiting around on her when she told me she would be ready. I told her to forget it I was going by myself because I knew she was not ready. She said she thought the night was about me and her not the party? Well it was until she mentioned that we could go out, and I got all excited about going out with her looking sexy and being there for this dude because he knows a few people in the music industry and he likes some of my beats and he may manage me as a producer. I never told her that is why I really wanted to go to the party. What I was gonna do was go and get the tickets and come back and pick her up but after I bitched at her about not being ready when she told me she would, which seems like a ritual with her, she said she was out of the mood. So I went alone.

I got there at 12:30 A.M. The guy didn’t arrive with the ticket until 1:30 A.M. and then he was trying to get rid of 8 tickets outside so we didn’t go into the party until 2:30 A.M., and it was cold out there and I didn’t have on a jacket so I was kind of glad she didn’t come. The party was crowded, especially in V.I.P. where we were standing. I really wasn’t feeling it. I just went to see who in the music industry I could meet, which I met no one. It’s kind of hard to meet people in the V.I.P. section flossing with bottles of champagne; at least that is what I think, so I didn’t talk to anyone.

The most I said to someone was to this lady goin’ in and out of the bathroom with this guy. I said to her, “you better stay outta the bathroom with that gentleman.” She laughed at me and told me, “nothing happened in there; I know him.” As if I cared if she knew him or not, like I was gonna spread rumors around the neighborhood the next day.

I stayed till the party ended. I didn’t try to talk to any women because I wasn’t there for that. Talking to women is a job, and when I got my baby Watrina at home who seems, at times, to really care about me, and other times not, I don’t need to work to talk to other bitches, especially if they ain’t that cute and classy to begin with; which there wasn’t one woman who really caught my eye for me to say anything to.

I got home at 5 A.M. I wakes up at 8 A.M. to wash my clothes and my car, and take a shower to take Watrina’s daughter Queen to dance class at Alvin Alley. I was gonna wait for dance class to be over, and Queen’s father was getting her from there, and I was gonna spend the whole day and night with Watrina. When I went to pick her up, she claims she was ready but she took 10 minutes to get down stairs, which also seems like a ritual when it comes to me and she knows I hate that. I called her 8:30 A.M. and she said she would be ready at 9:45 A.M. But when the time came I was still washing my clothes and my car so I told her I’d be there at 10 A.M. I left my house at like 10:07 A.M. get to her house at 10:11 A.M. and she didn’t get downstairs till like 10:20 A.M. I thought she left and got a cab, which would have made me more heated because at times, she isn’t ready for her daughter’s 10:30 A.M. dance class and we don’t leave until 10:40 A.M., but she couldn’t wait on me? But she did wait on me and when she finally came to the door, I says in a comical way, “I was just getting ready to be like forget you, and leave.” She didn’t smile or nothing, just looked at me like I was stupid and got in the car. She continued to have this stupid look on her face as if she had an attitude with me but wasn’t gonna discuss it with me. So I say to her, “I don’t like your attitude.” I didn’t drive off either, so she says, “what, you want me to get out and take a cab?” I didn’t say nothing but again, “I don’t like your attitude.” She got out the car and took her daughter to take a cab, and I left.

I was ready for a joyous day with her and she gets into my car with a gas face. I just drove off and went home and went to sleep. Around 1 P.M. I woke up and got dressed, went and got my coat out the cleaners, and put my suit, which Watrina made for me, into the cleaners. I drove back home and was gonna go upstairs but I just sat in the car because I really didn’t want to do that. After 5 minutes or so of sitting there thinking where I could go, it hit me to go to Barnes and Nobles on 66^th street in Manhattan and read Russel Simmon’s book “LIFE and DEF”. So I drove to the train station, put on my jacket and took the train there. I got the book and sat down and started reading it. I sat there for like two hours steady reading. It was an interesting read because I am a Hip Hop Head who loves Russel Simmons.

After about two hours, I purchased the book and went over to Tower Records to buy Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me” and 50 Cent’s “Get Rich or Die tryin’” albums. I already heard the 50 album because it was Hip Hop. But Norah Jones won like 10 Grammys for this album and she and 50 had been battling for the number one Billboard top 200 chart spot ever since the Grammys were televised. I knew of Norah Jones’ hit single and I liked it, hoped the whole album would sound like that. I saw the price was $12.77 and 50 was $13.99 so I bought both of them. I really didn’t want to buy 50 since I already had a good bootleg CD copy at home. But I figured, if I’m gonna buy Norah and support her and I don’t even know what this album is, what type of music it is or nothing; I better get 50, the hottest Hip Hop album out of a New York MC since Biggie Smalls “Ready To Die.”

After I left the record store, I went to Houston’s maybe hoping to see Watrina there since she said she wanted to go there; maybe catch her with a date or something because the last like 5 weekends had not been spent with me, and the night before she was acting very suspicious about her phone and me using it and maybe checking her voicemail messages. I got to Houston’s and didn’t see Watrina. I ordered dinner, during with the appetizer I started reading Russel’s book some more, and then after dinner, waiting on them to take my plate and bring my check, I read some more. I left the restaurant and went home and put the Norah Jones album in and started to read some more.

It was like 10 P.M. The Norah Jones album was light blues, and the whole album was like that single, “Don’t Know Why.” The music was light and her light voice over the light melodies and drums was a very relaxing listen. I didn’t hear the words, just the music and her voice. I’ve listened to the album like 8 times and I still don’t know half of what she is saying on none of the songs. But I could see why America is going crazy over that album. First, it’s the music and her voice. Second, if you listen closely to the lyrics, it’s blues-like and I heard a few of the lyrics and I understand why people are crazy for it. I know music of all genres, trust me, and she deserves every one of those Grammys she got.

So at this point around 10:45 P.M., I called Watrina for the third time of the day to smooth things over to see if she would come to my house for the night. She didn’t answer her cell phone. I figured because she was mad at me and also she was going out by herself, with girlfriends or a male. She didn’t call me back neither.

After realizing that I’d read over half of Russel’s book, I put it down, shut my ringer off my phone and went to bed because I was tired from only getting like 4 hours of sleep that whole night and day before. The Russel book told the story I already knew about starting Def Jam, RUN DMC, PHAT FARM, DEF COMEDY JAM, ending the distribution deal with Sony, signing with Polygram, Lyor Cohen, Russel’s model dating. What I didn’t know was that he took drugs like he did. He gave a few business pointers, life pointers, race pointers, etc.

I got up the next day and put the Norah Jones album on again and cleaned up my apartment. I still had my phone ringer off because I was mad that Watrina hadn’t spent the night with me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Eventually around 1 P.M. I turned my ringer on and went about my daily business. I went back to sleep, I got up and got dressed, did some push-ups and sit-ups. I started to cook some steak and potatoes and green beans for myself. I also started to read the Russel book some more.

Now this whole day I was contemplating just breaking up with Watrina because it’s been three years and we have been going through this shit the whole time. It’s really getting tired and old, and I just want to stop the relationship because it seems like all we do, every other weekend is be mad about something. Finally after finishing the book, finishing eating, I decided to call Watrina to talk to her and smooth over this rough edge of a weekend we had. All day I had been thinking about not calling her at all but I broke down.

See what I mean, I’m always the one, making all the effort to call, to spend time together, etc. I called her and asked her, “what are you thinking about me right now?” She had nothing to say. I was looking for her to say, that either she loved and missed me or she wants to break up. She said nothing. So we started going into the weekend issue and she had a little sass and chutzpah in her voice and speech. Let me tell you, “if a bitch is being hard with you and edgy, and unsympathetic, it says that she is tired of the situation or that she is tired of the situation and on top of that, she is fucking someone else.”

Watrina hasn’t spent really good quality time with me in a month and the last two weekends, she has disappeared on me. At the end of the conversation, because she didn’t say that she wanted to break up, I said, “forget it, drop it. I want to see you.” She said she had to braid her daughter’s hair and she would call me back and didn’t know if she would see me or not. An hour and a half later, after she was in the bed half sleep, she called me. She tells me that she is not coming over because she should have been over last night; like that was all my fault. I called her three times during the day and she never answered her phone and didn’t call me later that night. So I bid her a good night and hung up the phone on her ear slightly. I tried to call her back 10 minutes later to tell her I was trying to smooth things over and she was playing games of you-did, who-did. I called her like 7 times and she didn’t pick up the phone, playing games, but of course she is gonna tell me that she was sound asleep in 10 minutes after getting off the phone with me knowing that I was angry at her for not wanting to come over. So I left her a message that, “this relationship is over! What is wrong with trying to smooth things over by spending some time together and forgetting about Friday and Saturday, and you fucked that up on Sunday. Fuck You! I’m going out to find me another bitch to fuck since you don’t want to come over.”

I went to the TIKI ROOM and chilled; met Metphor and Zero there. I was pollyin’ about music, not concerned about bitches. I met this guy who I’d been looking at for a month now who looks like he is in the music industry. Turns out he is down with DJ CLUE and Dessert Storm and works in the Sony building down the block from where I work. I met this female “Combination” whom I’d seen around at Justin’s Restaurant on Tuesday Industry Nights, and other places like two years prior, and Metaphor said she was a rapper. I met this other guy whose face I always recognize. He managed Uncle Sam, a fallen-off R&B Singer, and a few other groups or singers who have all fallen off. I left around 2:45 A.M. drunk off Hennessy and Grand Marnier.

My mind was still made up that I’d broken up with Watrina. I called her when I woke up at 7:30 A.M. to tell her that I’m bringing her leather she bought to make me a leather suit, and her mother’s plate. She tells me to bring it later. I told her I was bringing it now. She asked, “is it that serious?” I said “Yeah, it’s that serious!” She obviously hadn’t gotten my message. When I got to her house I asked had she gotten it. She said yes, not to argue in front of her father. I told her to her face, “this relationship is over, it’s no good.” She nodded her head, handed me the stuff she’d bought for my daughter from the GAP and I left. It was over in my mind. When I got to work, she called at 10 A.M. telling me that she is coming over my house tonight, so I’m just gonna have to let her in because she is gonna be there. I told her, “don’t come and I’m not saying it’s alright because I’m not gonna do like you, always say something and then don’t do it or be late doing it.” She hung up because she was entering the train station. She called me later saying, “we shouldn’t break up. We have a nice family, and we get along together.” All of which is true, even the part about us not breaking up. I love what we have, truly, but it seems that she doesn’t love it as much as I do, or maybe I don’t love as much as I say I do because we keep having these bullshit arguments, I’m tired of them and I want out! She wants to take some time apart but still be together. I don’t believe in that shit because if you need time apart, stay apart, which we can’t seem to make it together, so maybe we should be apart.

Jrnl Entry No. 6.11.2001

Timothy McVeigh was just executed this morning. My views on this are, “I don’t give a fuck.” He is the guy who blew up the state building in Oklahoma and many people died, including some black people I suppose. But that was like eight years ago which further helps me not to care, and none of my family or friends were involved in the bombing. But even if one of my friends or family had been involved, I probably still wouldn’t care.

You know five years ago my friend Ceasar Cicero was in a motorcycle accident. A pickup truck pulled out in front of him while he was strolling down the street. Now the guy who hit him was under the influence of alcohol. When Ceasar crashed into him, he kept on going instead of stopping. Ceasar was dragged by the truck by his hair because it was long. His face got all scrapped up and dismantled, and he had to have a closed casket. Now granted he wasn’t wearing his helmet at the time of the accident. A helmet could have saved him even though the doctors told his fiancé that it wouldn’t have because they didn’t want her to go crazy thinking what her life would be like if he would have only worn a helmet. Another thing that might have saved him is if the guy simply would have stopped the truck on impact instead of speeding off.

Now I knew Ceasar since Kindergarten. When he died, all I thought about was the fact that he was gone. I didn’t think about the guy who caused the accident. I thought about him a little after the funeral was over and he went to court and only got six months in jail for vehicular homicide despite the fact that he hit and ran and dragged Ceasar along with him, and he was also drunk. I thought that to be unfair, but did I want to protest constantly against the guy and wish him dead? No. After a while he just faded from my memory. I went and visited Ceasar’s grave for Memorial Day, and no thought came of the guy who caused the accident, just thoughts of, “I wish you were here. I wish, I wish, I wish.”

My cousin Romeo, his mom shot his father dead. I cried at his funeral for my love for him because he was a very nice man and good father as far as my eyes could see. I cried for Romeo and his sister Sary Kim. I didn’t see that Solomon was taking it too hard. He took it like a man I suppose I can say. During that time, I never had a hateful thought toward Romeo’s mother. Hey, she had some differences with her husband and one morning she decided to settle them. She’s been in prison for 10, 11 years now. Do I wish her death and pain? No, I do not.

My point is that killing the killer doesn’t make things better for the killed or the family of the killed. Now in Timothy’s case, he should die for taking multiple lives in such a way. He didn’t commit a crime he committed an atrocity.

I think personally that Romeo’s mother should be let out of jail now. 10 years in a cell is enough. I gave some thought to this and my prison system would work like this. If you kill someone, just one person, you get 10 to 20 years, 10 straight before possibility of parole. If you kill more than one person at a time, you get death. If you killed one person and get out and kill again, you get death.

Give drug dealers caught with a kilo or more, 5 years. They get out and get caught again, give them 10. No one should do life for the sale of drugs. Drug addicts can bounce back if they choose, so give the drug dealer a chance to bounce back. And after all, drug dealers don’t create the drugs they simply supply it and most of the time it’s through a middle-man. They are just capitalist and that is what America is all about. I think drug dealers are half-stupid for gambling with their freedom like they do, but on the flip side of it they are also kind of smart. Look the life they have.

Take Romelo Artrois for example. When he graduated from high school, he became a drug dealer. He fucked every bitch in town that I wanted to fuck and couldn’t fuck because I didn’t have any money. He had all the money. He had cars, clothes, trips to Vegas, etc. Look at the life of the guy in the movie “Blow”. He had millions of dollars, a big beautiful home, cars, everything he wanted, even a beautiful wife and kid. He lived this life for maybe ten years more or less.

Take me, after I graduated high school, I went to college. I graduated from college. I make $36,000 a year. I haven’t fucked half the bitches I wanted during my college years nor afterwards. I have a $16,000 car, a bum ass apartment, a few nice looking clothes, and no chance of losing my freedom unless I do something stupid. But the point I’m tryin’ to make is that I will probably never have the hottest car to drive, never be able to take trips to the Bahamas or Vegas, never have a big beautiful home. Or if I do get to have this life, it will probably take me another twenty years to get it. I have to work twenty years before I can do all this if I even want to do at that age.

While drug dealers, most in their twenties, have thousands of dollars laying around to do whatever the fuck they want in their youth. Most of them are stupid and wind up in jail 5 to 10 years by the time they are 27 to 30 years old. But I’m just saying, I wonder is the trade-off is fair. To have everything you want at your finger-tips: pussy, money, cars, etc; or, to live like a slave, working everyday for twenty years to build up a salary to have the same things. Truthfully, I feel like I’m in prison. I got to get up every day at 6:30 A.M. to go to work and all the money I make is for bills. I work and I go home because I can’t afford to go anywhere else.

If I didn’t have my daughter to think about while I’m living here in New York, I probably would be doing some stupid shit. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t because I’m just not that type of guy. I’m waiting patiently for my world to come together. I figure in five years, I’ll be paid more, my car will be paid off, etc. I’ll have a little extra cash to flaunt at age –. See what I mean? It’s like I got to do a five year bid before I can have a little freedom. Drug dealers have mostly all freedom out in the free world until they are caught. Do you get the analogy I’m trying to make here? This just seems my case thought. It depends on your life situation, and my life situation seems like I should have been a drug dealer. I wouldn’t suggest anyone be a drug dealer, let’s just say I can understand. You got money to spend. If you’re smart, you’ll save a lot of it. You get girls that the average good looking guy only dreams of having, and this is even if you are ugly, you still get them.

I hope my daughter doesn’t turn out to be a sack chaser; one who dates guys because they have money. I doubt that she will turn out that way with mine and her moms’ influence. My daughter is – now. She’s growing up on me. She was just here in New York for two weeks with me. Boy she has it really bad with allergies. She can’t blow her nose so she continuously sniffs the snot in. She cried seemed like for the first week that she was here. She whined about everything: she was sleepy, hungry, her belly hurt, her forehead hurt. I was a little concerned about the forehead thing. She said she hit her head on a flower-pot at home. She complained for three days straight that her forehead hurt, especially when she cried. After like three days, she never complained about her forehead again.

My cousin’s daughter Million was also here in NY with us. She’s a sweet little girl, well mannered. She says she’s good in school. She may just turn out to be the next family pride to rise up out the ghetto from a single parent home and be somebody. She says she wants to be an actress. She doesn’t really know what that means and what it entails, but I hope she pursues it and actually makes it. Her father is in prison for being caught with 30 Kilos of cocaine with intent to distribute locally and across state lines; Ohio to Kentucky. He’s been gone ever since she was three or four or maybe even before that. She enjoyed herself. I took my daughter and her to the empire state building viewing deck, to the museum of natural history. I drove them around in the city one night and rode pass Puff Daddy’s restaurant. Of course we went to Times Square. We went there with Watrina to take some pictures. On that particular day we also seen a model that Million’s mom has a calendar of that I bought her for Christmas. I pointed him out to Million. We were on fifth avenue in Manhattan in front of the building where Watrina works. Million shook his hand and said hi and I told her to take a picture with him. I intended to take Million and Janelle to the Zoo but Watrina said that the zoo should be like a three to four hour occasion. It closed at 5 P.M. I tried to wake up early and get them ready two mornings in a row, but I couldn’t get ready before 2 P.M. with bathing, feeding, and combing Janelle’s hair. I just said forget it because I was running out of money also. We made it to the movies to see Shrek. It was a nice kid movie and they enjoyed it.

Watrina and her daughter also came along. We did a lot of activities with Watrina. We went to Red Lobster with Watrina also. Watrina is my half girlfriend that I mentioned above. She’s – and just wants to kick it so to speak and not get too serious with anybody; just keep it on a cool level. So I say that half of her likes me and the other half wants to keep it light even though we spend a good amount of time together. I like her so far and her daughter is cool. We’ve been getting along for two and half months now. My daughter, at the age of – is writing her name. I didn’t start writing my name and stuff until I was – going on –. I was glad to see that. I asked her why she didn’t tell me over the phone that she writes her name and she said, “I don’t know.” Her mother and I don’t talk, but she could have told me that my daughter is writing her name.

Janelle told me that she and her mother have moved into a new house or apartment. Victoria hasn’t told me that yet either. I’m waiting to see when she will. I started to ask her about it when I dropped Janelle off, but I said, “knawl, I’ma see if she gonna tell me and give the new address and phone number.” I think a father has the right to know where his child actually lives not just the place where he picks her up and drops her off, which is at Victoria’s mother’s house. She’s eventually gonna have to give me the phone number and tell me because I’m about to start calling my daughter twice a week now instead of once.

Victoria probably has in her head that I don’t need to know where she lives for some reason or another. She’s always seemed to have some bullshit thoughts in her head concerning me and my daughter. She was going to see lawyers when Janelle was first born to ask them about how much she could keep my daughter away from me; what rights I had and what rights I didn’t. Victoria was looking kind of good when I dropped Janelle off. It only happens about twice a year that I see her looking attractive to me. I don’t mention it to her because I have no friendly words besides, “how are you.” After I saw her trying to play with me and my daughter’s relationship, that put whatever friendship we could have had out the door and over the top of the mountain.

I wish I could be around to watch my daughter grow up. I love being with her and watching her. And sometimes I have a little inkling of a thought of how could Victoria and I get back together. Maybe she’s grown up out of her, whatever she was going through when she had Janelle. Maybe her life is a little more together now because I don’t know anything about her: where she works, what she does, etc. I think sometimes that maybe we can make something happen. But then the reality of the situation is that it would take a lot of work with all the bad blood and bullshit she put up with me spending time with my daughter. I’ve seen the bitch in her and I don’t want no parts of it ever again. She can have that shit and save it for whoever decides to maybe marry her ass. So at the end of those get back together thoughts is the thought that I’m glad I ain’t glued together in marriage or engagement with her ass.

The relationship I have with my daughter is as good as it can be. Will I try to eventually do the family thing where I get married and my wife has a baby by me? To tell the truth, I don’t know. When you think about it, It’s all bullshit once things go bad. I don’t think my marriage will go bad none too soon, but I never know. I think I’m the easiest guy to get along with. I’m out to please. I try to be humorous and not all stick-up-the-ass. I work, I fuck, I cook, I comb little girl hair a little bit also, and I’m willing to try just about anything non-homosexual; that’s anything socially and sexually. I mean what more can a young woman ask for? But who knows, look at Victoria and i. And plus when people start getting older and older and maturing deeply and shit, shit sometimes gets all fucked up in the relationship or marriage. My wife may hit 40 and decide she wants to live in Africa. Hell, I might go, but my frame of mind right now, hell knawl.

Life is fucked up if you ask me and brining other lives into this shit is selfish truthfully. Most individuals have fucked up lives, are poor, dying from disease. I don’t think I want to bring another life here to face this bullshit. It’s gonna be hard enough getting my daughter through this life. My life at this point is all fucked up if you ask me. My half of girlfriend has brightened it a bit. My visitation arrangement with my daughter has also brightened it.

My music still isn’t going anywhere because mutha fuckaz don’t want to help nobody. They don’t even want to give you the slightest chance to make it. I’m learning this. I originally thought that if you had talent, it would be fairly simple to get someone to recognize that and give you that push you need to get to where you’re trying to go. I used to think all the time, “look at the entertainment companies and clothing companies: Bad Boy, SEAN JEAN, FUBU, Flip Mode Entertainment, FUBU Entertainment, Def Jam, Def Communications, etc. You can’t get near these companies.

I went to FUBU to hand in a resume and I felt no love. It was just like walking into a white major corporation. They told me they didn’t have an accounting department, but they would take my resume and keep it on file. I saw Busta Rhymes in the village last year, and I had a tape on me. I originally thought that Busta was one of the coolest cats you would ever want to meet, cordial to his fans. He was surrounded by bodyguards. He was talking on the phone. His body guards were slippin’ because I walked right up to him and threw my hands up to give him a pound and he ignored me. Then his body-guard came in my face and said that, “he can’t talk right now, he on the phone.” I walked away and then turned around and asked the body guard could I talk to him once he got off the phone. He said, “if it’s business, no. He chillin right now. Business hours are Monday thru Friday.” I just walked away and went on bout my business.

I got a telephone number of this female rapper “Uneek” I know from DJ Doo Wop Tapes back in the 90s. I talked to her once on the phone and she told me to call her back. I called her back three times and left my number and she never called back. I got Phantasm from the Cella Dwellaz number. I called it and I got no answer. It was probably a number to a pay phone. The bullshit never endz! I still love makin’ my music even if nobody listens to it. I still got the dream of producing a song on one album at least before I drop it and consider it a failure. Right now I feel like I’m failing in life. I’ve accomplished getting a college degree, but I just did that shit because I knew I had to take care of myself. I don’t really want to be an accountant sitting at this damn desk looking at a computer screen. I want to have some type of connections to music. Hell I can even be an accountant for artist or a record label. But that seems impossible too. How easy it is to get what you really don’t want, but when you have passion and really want something, it seems like all the road blocks in the world are up against you. “But fuck that shit cause I gots to live.” (Ice Cube) Whether I get what I want or not, I gots to liv

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.”