Tag: New York

Jrnl Entry No. 10.3.2003

So I’ve decided to put my own album out. This industry is a trip. No one is willing to help you out to let you in and that is the bottom line. I would say that getting into this shit is like hitting the lottery for a small jackpot, and once you spend that up you are ass out cause most niggaz just get a little money and then go broke in the game. I got good product, so I think, so I’m gonna get a few MCs that I know and get them to record my songs. I’ve been listening to this shit for 17 years, dreaming about getting into it for 15 years, and actually trying to make my dreams come true for five years.

For the five years that I’ve been trying to make my dreams come true, I have seen none to very little results. I got a call back from Black Rob about a beat tape I gave him like when I first got to New York, right around the same time he was coming down off of his “WHOA”, one hit wonder, high. He called me and left a message. I called him back left a message. I called him back and left another message. I approached him on the street about our calls to each other, and I haven’t heard from him since or called him. I’m not calling nobody else who claims to be in the music industry. I’ma put out my own shit and try to promote steady and hard, THE ONLY CHILD! I’ma see if I can get some niggaz to call me. I feel like I know what it takes to make a good album, or I should know from listening to all the albums I have at home, so I’m gonna give my knowledge a go. If my knowledge doesn’t show me any results, then maybe I’ll quit.

I’ve tried everything: handing out beat tapes to rappers with deals (Talib Kweli, Raekwon, Black Rob, Lord Have Mercy, Rampage, Rah Digga, Graig Mack, DJ Clue, Skane, The Hood Fellaz.) I’ve tried to go out and meet people to talk to them to see who and what they know and if they could connect me to anyone. I’ve tried not handing out my beat CDs unless we have a face to face second meeting. I’ve given my stuff to people who work for Bad Boy (Damon Eden, Hen-Roc). I’ve given my stuff to people who work at Violator (Andre Neal). I’ve tried hanging out with so-called rappers who know a lot of people and who get into any club or big party in New York for free (Metaphor, Combination). I’ve tried making a connection with a guy from the town I went to college in, Youngstown, guy by the name of Rufus who had an album out under Chad Elliot and Al West; album called, “Credentials” He works at Ark Angel studio with a guy by the name of Prince Charles Alexander who is a mixer/engineer in the industry and has mixed for Mary J Blige, Faith Evans, Angie Stone, etc. Rufus writes R&B songs. He wrote”Jumpin Jumpin” for Destiny’s Child. He wrote a song for Angie Stone on her second album. He never put me on to anyone in the business. SoI’m through with all that shit.

I am __ years old and I have been dreaming about getting into the music industry since I was __ years of age and that many years is a long time to be dreaming. I’m gonna try to give it one last hard go and if that doesn’t work, I’m quittin’! I will hang up the towel and just face the fact that I wasn’t meant to be the next Dr. Dre or Pharrell of the Neptunes, or Pete Rock, or DJ Premier, or Timbaland, or just any no name album filler producer. I will let the dream die with the thought that, “I gave it a serious try.” Trying is worth something after all, right? I think it is because if you never try you will never know if you could have made it or not. It seems as if I can’t make it, so hey.

It also seems I can’t make it with relationships also. My two relationships with women who had three kids were great it seemed, as if they could last forever. My relationship with a 24 year old with one kid, a good job, sexy, stylish, etc., it is falling apart also. We recently moved in together and I notice that she doesn’t pay attention to me and that she rarely wants to have sex. She often ignores little words or things I say to her. I can say “BOO!”. Instead of her saying, “was that suppose to scare me?” she’ll say nothing, look at me like I’m stupid and go on about her way. I can’t be in a relationship like that. I’m not too worried about it because I still look good, bitches still give me eyes. But what if I didn’t look good, we __ or older and I still find myself not being able to get along with a bitch? I would have to deal with it, but that really wouldn’t be a good situation to be in. I don’t know where my life is headed right now and where I’ll land because it seems that at the rate this relationship is goin, it’s not gonna have a happy ending. But I guess in the end, all will work out how it was meant to be. Right now I’m meant to be in New York, broke, no job, not many friends, no where to go exciting, not too interested in fucking with all these sexy bitches in this city for fear of catching aids because condoms ain’t my thang.

Maybe it’s meant for me to put this album out and the shit blows up. The way I want to do is promote like a big label album with big posters and flyers. I want to promote in Chicago, LA, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Buffulo New York, and possibly Canada. Maybe that is my fate. I can remember when I was little around the house in Warren in the Highland Terrace Projects with my two aunts buying and listening to 45s. I think the music got into me from way back then. I guess looking at my life just in general, you never know what is affecting you and how it is affecting you until years down the road and look back on it.

Like now at age __, I’m starting to think that fucking at the age of 13 and having a girlfriend at 14 – 16 and having lots and lots of sex, having a girlfriend at age 17-18 and having lots and lots of sex, having two girlfriends at age 20 – 24 and having double lots and lots of sex, having a girlfriend from age 24 – 26 and having lots and lots of sex. All that sex at such an early age has left my sex drive at this point kinda low I think. My dick doesn’t get as hard as it used to. I’m not excited about it as I used to be. I see all kind of bitches in New York City that I could try to and probably make it fucking around with them, but I don’t have the desire. For the first time in my life being single or having a girlfriend, I turned down some pussy from an 18 year old at that. I didn’t turn down Carmel when she met me at a gas station on Wednesday and I was over her house on Friday night fucking her. She was white and fat. She wasn’t thick. She was fat. I didn’t turn her down though. And it turned out that on her back she would fuck you to death, wiggle that ass around so much, you’d think she was having a seizure. She wouldn’t let me fuck her any other way but missionary. But that was some good missionary pussy. I turned down an 18 year old who I was two days away from fucking if I had hung in there. Many guys don’t start fucking until age 16, 17 and even then they still don’t have as much sex as I did from age 14 to 16 until either they move out of their parents home, in with a girlfriend, or until they are married. Now, I’m feeling the effect of that. But thank god they have created Viagra, a get your dick hard and stay hard pill. I’m not ready for Viagra yet though. Hopefully, if I keep exercising, and keep my blood circulation up, I won’t ever need it. At age __, I started a little exercise program. I started with just running just one lap around a ¼ mile track and stopping for breath and rest. At age __, I’m up to a whole mile straight and I guess the ¼ mile and whole miles will just keep growing and growing.

I have a job interview on Monday with this company of god knows when I sent them my resume. I came to the library to look them up on the internet but the internet is down. I need a job badly right now. My girlfriend Watrina has been nice so far but she won’t be always, especially with my attitude and her attitude clashing against each others. I don’t know what the problem is. We are two beautiful people who should be able to see that we can have a bright future together and we should be trying to preserve that future in advance, but it seems as if we are not. Maybe she doesn’t think that I am beautiful, or maybe she is trying to tear me down or break me down from thinking so highly of myself. Maybe she knows that I have labeled her as my only girl with all the right credentials so she feels she can do what she wants to do and treat me like she wants whether I like it or now. Well she can’t and she will find that out soon enough as Victoria did.

I think Victoria thought that since I had her baby that I was obligated to stay with her, or that I had a new job and was afraid of child support. She tried ignoring me and not giving me sex and you see where she is at. I just don’t respond to that threat of no sex well, and I probably never will. Watrina says I only pay attention to her when I want sex. And so it has been since we moved in together that half the time I have made an advance for it she has turned me down. She turned me down the morning before she was to go on a trip out of town for her job where this guy she thought was gay, whom she eventually ending up liking and going to dinner with him, was gonna be. She got home from her trip and diddn’t have very much to say to me. She got up this morning and didn’t say anything to me. It’s heading toward where we are just gonna be living together and not talking, just sleeping in the same bed or she will sleep with her daughter until I leave. I will try not to leave but I don’t think my ego will allow me to stay with a bitch who seems to be ignoring me. So I’ll see what happens with my relationship.

I’ll see what happens with this album thing. I’m see what happens with life and my future because right now it doesn’t seem to be bright in no aspect. If I didn’t have my daughter, and things were this bad, I’d probably kill myself. But then again, my daughter is a reason why things are this bad so maybe without her they wouldn’t be so bad. And just in case something should happen to her and this is getting read in court: I don’t want my daughter to go away. I love her very much. Sure, things would probably be better if she went away but I wouldn’t have a part in her going away. I don’t wish her away. I’m just looking at the reality of what I think the situation would be if she wasn’t here. I think people would be lying to themselves if they didn’t think about the best and worse case scenarios of their lives with and without their present situations. Like what if you weren’t married to that fat bitch who was so fine and beautiful in her 20s but as soon as the 30s hit and the second kid came along, her ass went south. Now you don’t look at her the way you used to. You are only there because you are used to her, probably too old and fat yourself to get another finer bitch, and you don’t have the power and money to survive child support, alimony and the demands of a hotter sweeter, and maybe younger bitch. And of course, yeah, you love her too. THINK ABOUT IT!

Jrnl Entry No. 10.13.1999

I’m sitting here waiting for a summary of income statements to finish printing. I’m goin’ home tonight to see Sausha, to see Janelle. I’ll probably go and check Flynn out just to spend some time with him you know. I haven’t talked to him in a while. He’s probably doing nothing, fucking with some bitch from somewhere. I was thinking on my way home from lunch that Flynn has tow-motor experience, and probably could get a job working in the warehouse here at The Italian Job. But 1. They probably don’t need no more workers. 2. I remember him saying that he would not like to live in New York. I bet that him and Burton would love it up here; I mean all the boriquaz you could imagine and whatever else of light skin they may like. I mean madd shit to get into like Windexter used to say.

I don’t know of all the madd shit, but I’m learning a few spots. And take for example like Saturday night just hangin’ out at the party and watching the girls and cars go by was like fun on the really. I was just sitting there not ready to go home, chillin’ you know. Man the bitches up here is like, I don’t know, but whatever they like, I don’t like em’. One thing I do like though is seeing my people in places, ugly or not. I mean most women you see usually have a nice ass in some tight jeans, but it’s like sometimes they try to be too fly and just disturb my whole shit for em’. And the weaves and braids are ridiculous.

Sausha says she was getting hawked up here and I know why. She has that natural beauty, not flyness, but beauty: natural hair, natural skin, and a little sexy body to go with it. Guys like that naturalness in a woman. Girls here don’t understand the concept that a pair of nice fitting jeans, a nice quality pair of shoes or boots, and a nice fitting top, with pants and top showing off your curves a lot or a little is the sexiest outfit for little to no money. They try to get too fly here and half of them don’t got it and won’t get it.

Burton needs to move his ass up here, but I think he is scared; scared that he won’t get attention for his dreads for the most part. See, down there in Ohio he stands out because he looks like he is from here in New York. The same with Maxumus, he is in Warren with one of the best girls in town. I can’t say best looking because I haven’t seen her in a while. But I say one of the best because she is gainfully employed with car, apartment, owns a house and is trying to buy another one. She can be very beautiful when she wants to be. She has three kidz: two by my man Ceasar whom she would have married had he not died in a motor cycle accident. She just had a kid by Maxumus whom she has just had a thing for since I don’t know when. I guess she will stay with him also and probably get married.

Now for some reason I don’t think that Alissa is looked upon and judged for having three kidz. Let’s take a look at why. Well, mainly because of the things I mentioned about her up top. She is taking care of her business well. She is not living in the projects; seems to have it all figured out just the same as Lauryn Hill or any other independent woman. It’s not that you are judged for having three kidz; if you are going to birth three kidz into this world without no way to take care of them besides the Gov’t, it looks like bad planning on your part; therefore, yee shall be judged by some people.

But back to Maxumus for a moment; he is from Queens N.Y., but he seems to be havin’ a great time in Warren, Ohio. He is having a great time because he has that quality of being from New York, which makes him different from all the rest of the little people in Warren. He was or is a drug dealer which hoes seem to love in Warren. Now in N.Y. what would he be; a petty drug dealer out of the thousands and that is it. There would be nothing special about him. He would just be an average, short, bow-legged little nigga, and he is afraid of that. I don’t really know, but if he could be something else better in N.Y., why is he is Warren? I heard he was thinking of moving back to N.Y., but Alissa didn’t like the idea. I guess she is afraid to make a move also. She said that she wanted to move from Warren to Atlanta or N.Y. but she still remains. I don’t think she is afraid of losing any recognition that she has in Warren because all women need for recognition is an ass, some tidys and an average face, all of which she has; a beautiful face actually.

I guess mutha fuckaz is afraid to take chances and just make a more exciting life for themselves. Mutha fuckaz complain, complain, complain, but come opportunity to go, they stay put; nervous confined or a corner. Living in Warren is for the elderly. I’m especially seeing that since I’ve been living in N.Y. for the last three months. People over a certain age shouldn’t be allowed to live within one hundred miles of this place. But what age should that be? 55,60,65? It should all be for the young and middle age. People say this place is fast and they don’t like it. Well I guess the constant movement will scare some. You do have to be very aware of all your surroundings, especially while driving. If you daydream for one moment too long, you’re in an accident.

People complain about their children growing up around all of these buildings with no grass or yard to play in. I say just what I said when everybody was telling me that I didn’t want to live here. I said there are millions of people already there, if they can do it so can I. Millions of kidz have grown up there and turned out just fine, just as good as some of the ones I grew up with in Warren playing baseball and kickball in the Highland Holmes in the grass. Whether it’s fear to grow up and just make the best out of a different living situation or that the city is not for everyone, when you mention N.Y., Mutha fuckaz get frozen. I ain’t scared of this place. Fuck this place, I’m gon’ conquer his city like P Diddy!

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SCARED TO MOVE: DIFFERENT JOB, DIFFERENT NEIGHBORHOOD, DIFFERENT CITY, DIFFERENT STATE? WHY?

Jrnl Entry No. 8.7.2001

I feel like shit for a couple of reasons. I can’t seem to make tracks, or at least I don’t think I’m making tracks that niggaz would want these days. If I was making these tracks for people back in 1991-1996, I’d be all good. I tried putting together this track using these horn riffs from this Jazz CD yesterday and I couldn’t get it to come together, and even if I did get it to come together, no one rhymes to shit like that anymore anyway.

I can’t stop thinking about Sausha for some reason. I wish I could be with her right now and I am longing to see her and make love to her. She was so sweet to me. She may be a big hoe, fucking every nigga in Warren she can get her hands on and I wouldn’t know it because I’m in New York. But as far as I know, she was the sweetest simple, and sexy girlfriend I’ve ever had. I need a woman in my life and she would be the perfect one I think. I keep having these little thoughts in my head, “—-, fuck this Hip Hop Music production shit and move back to Ohio and be with Sausha. Maybe move to Akron or Cleveland and we could be together and live happily ever after.” But what and the hell would I do in Ohio? What and the hell am I doing here in New York? I’m just torn on a few issues.

While I like Watrina, she is young and has other things on her mind besides being with me. I assume she is how all New York women are, busy running around doing whatever, whether that whatever is messing with other guys or taking care of life’s business, there is only little time for sex and relationships. Like last night, she was getting home at 10 P.M. Now where she was coming from, I didn’t give much thought to it, and I didn’t ask her neither. I picked her up from the train station because I wanted to see what her weave in her hair looked like. I didn’t like it at all except for the front part where she had her natural hair braided. The back was filled with garbage Shirley Temple curls that don’t look or feel like hair.

The other thing that is bothering me is my job. I need more money that is one thing and I know I am not gonna get it here. If I go and work for any old company just for more money, it’s gonna be the same cycle as with Circle K, as with The Italian Job; 2 years then boredom and ready to find a new job and I don’t want to go through this again. I want to work somewhere that I’m excited about working, will stay there and excel in my profession. The other thing is that I just want to be settled; have a good woman making nice money so we can buy us a house. I want to do something also besides work for someone, but what besides produce music, I don’t know? So maybe my wife will have an idea and be ambitious enough to follow through and make it happen. Watrina has ideas but she is far from my wife, wanting to be my wife or even becoming my wife.

That is basically why I am feeling shitty. I just turned – and what do I got to be happy about? I should be happy that I am a college graduate. I am happy that I have reliable transportation. I am happy that I am able to take care of myself: cook, clean, dress myself. I am happy that I have a beautiful daughter and she knows me and loves me and talks to me on the phone. I am not happy that I have no money. I am not happy that I can’t drive my car into the city on the weekends because you can’t park nowhere. Who has money to park in a parking garage and pay $5 to $8 an hour to park your car, or park at a two hour meter which there are never any open spaces? And if you do find a space at a mater, two hours is not enough time to do anything; or less than that, most meters are for one hour.

I spent like three hours in the Barnes & Nobles book store Sunday reading Richard Wright “Native Son” I found a free spot to park just as I was about to start heading home. Native Son is a good book, sort of what I’m goin’ through right now, a dilemma between what I want to do and what will the white man let me do? Only difference is I am actually doing a little with my life working as a dead end accountant instead of hanging on the streets with my friends doing nothing. I am not happy that I seem to be in the land of opportunity for everything that I like to do, but yet no one seems to want to help me take advantage of those opportunities. I am not happy that I do not have a steady woman in my life who is aching with ambition to start something like I am and we can start it together. I am not happy that I am reaping what I sewed with Lauren from Watrina. Lauren loved me so just like I have thoughts that I love Watrina. I went out with my friends on the weekends. I split up my time with her because I was also fucking Rebecca at the same time. Watrina is doing the same thing right now. She likes me, but she’s probably fucking with someone else and could give a fuck less if I am in the picture or not. She probably has a dick that is equally as good to her as mine, just like I had Rebecca in my case of losing Lauren who gave me equally good sex. I am not happy that the woman I think I love is in Ohio. I am not happy that I was going through this same feeling about Lauren last year around this time exactly; talking about marrying her and shit. So maybe this is just a side effect of what I am thinking about Sausha that I will go through every year during the summers until I get married for real. So maybe I love Sausha but I really don’t want to be with her at all. Maybe I’m just feeling really lonely right now. I guess I am bored and maybe these thoughts are a result of my boredom. Maybe I’m money broke and these thoughts are a result of my brokenness. Is money the answer to my problems? Is a woman or wife the answer to my problems?

WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME OF YOUR THOUGHTS IN ALONE AND LONELY TIMES?

Jrnl Entry No. 4.6.2001

I remember following in the footsteps of my older cousin Romeo Wrangle. I decided in the 11th grade that I wanted to be a mathematician. He was attending University of Akron at that time majoring in the subject. It sounded like a good subject that would provide me with a nice job and well-being in life. In order to major in math, I was told I had to take physics so I signed up for the class as my first step toward the journey of becoming a mathematician. When I got to physics class, I had taken algebra, geometry, and was at the time taking algebra II.

In physics class we had to do these conversions of like inches to meters, miles to kilometers, etc. I had never seen or heard of such math and I was completely not getting it at all. I had nowhere to turn for help, the teacher who I had before as a science teacher was not a very enthusiastic person. He was dry I guess you could say. I tried asking him for help, but he was no help. I came into class early a couple of times and he explained it to me, but I just couldn’t grasp it. I had decided that I would drop the class. I remember one day crying in my room after struggling with the homework, thinking to myself that I would not be anything in life because I couldn’t pass this course. I didn’t know of anything else to be but what Romeo was gonna be. I guess you can say Romeo was my big brother, idle, etc. He got good grades in school; he had nice looking girlfriends; he had friends in school and was an average cool kid. Personally I could say that if it hadn’t been for his influence, I don’t know where I’d be today. No, I actually can’t say that because I wasn’t on to a bad road before we really started hanging out a lot. I think that he was just that person I needed in my life to look up to. And looking at his image and what he was doing in life helped me stay up and focused as far as my life went.

While I had alright clothing to wear and the latest named brand tennis shoes, one thing we could never afford which I wanted so bad was a brand new car. I also wanted to live in a house and not in the projects. But my mom could never afford any of this.

I had friends, the Lindseys, who lived in a nice home; had a brand new car, nice clothes, and their other friends had the same. Come to think about it, I don’t know how I fit in with them; and I guess I didn’t considering how I used to beg Long to come and pick me up to go to basketball games with him and his brother Aderale and sister Alice. No, I don’t think it was that I didn’t fit it because I wasn’t a total scrub or nothing like that, but it was just they had so many other friends that I was just a pebble in the stone yard.

See Long and them grew up from birth until about age seven or eight or nine, in the Highland Holmes. When their dad, Mr. Frank died, they moved to the northwest side of town. They were the first kids I remember playing with and being friends with. My mom and I moved to California when I was five years old the summer before my birthday. By time I came back to town to stay three years later, they had moved to their new neighborhood. It wasn’t until ninth grade that I got back in contact with them. Long who had flunked a grade was in the tenth grade, 16, and was driving a brand new red black and grey Chevy Blazer with a spoiler kit on it and a booming sound system, and this car/truck shot his and his brother and sister’s popularity through the roof.

These were the people I wanted to be around for one, because they were so popular and for two, because they were my first friends. So I forced my way into the crew. I’d go over their house from time to time and chill. In the summer when I got my Honda Elite 80 scooter back out because I had my license then, everybody was on my nuts wanting to ride it so I guess that gained me some acceptance into the crew. I didn’t let them ride much though. The crew was Adrock, Hardy, Long, Aderale, Sachel Harville, Wicky Dejean; they all probably rode my scooter once each. One crew member, the oldest of the bunch was Leon Bonnard. He was living with the Lindsey’s for some reason or another. He wasn’t so accepting of me coming around. He didn’t know why I came around. I guess he seen me as the little bug-a-boo trying to hang with the most popular black kids on the west side of town, and he even said as much to me a few times. But one thing about me was that if people cracked jokes on me or said insulting things, it never really bothered me much. I guess I was always in tune with myself and people cracking on me or like Leon, who would ask me sometimes when I came over, “why you come over here?” I don’t know if he was playing or not but he didn’t bother me. One thing in my mind I had over him and all the other kids who hung around the Lindsey’s was that I knew Mr. Frank. I’d seen Mr. Frank in the flesh; he and Mrs. Janine together as husband and wife and family, ate dinner with them, went to the Hot Dog Shoppe together with them. And I was a friend of the Lindsey’s before Leon ever knew who the Lindsey’s were and before the Lindsey’s knew who he was. I remember Aderale coming outside with whepps all on his arms because Mr. Frank had whipped his ass the night before. Now none of their other friends could share this story with Aderale and Long and Alice. So Leon, while you were right about me wanting to be down because y’all was the most popular and all the girls liked y’all; you really had no clue why I stayed coming around. And reminiscing back on the times, Leon and I actually became good friends as well and I used to visit him at his dad’s house when he moved back to Ohio from an out of state stint. But on to the subject at hand; Romeo lived in a house, his mom worked at General Motors and his dad and she owned a little soul food restaurant called Rosa and Parks.

Wicky Dejean who I knew through church, when he was sixteen, his father bought him a brand new Buick Riviera. He wore nice clothes and they lived in a nice home. I tried to make friends with him also at one point in time but that didn’t really happen. I just always wanted to be around these type of people. My friends I had grew up with in the projects like Jay Claude, they had went on to sell drugs and were smoking weed, etc. Those weren’t my things. So being around these type of people I guess fueled my drive to have a decent life. I was heavy off into Hip Hop at the time also; BDP, PUBLIC ENEMY, BIG DADDY KANE, ERIC B & RAKIM, BIZ, MARLEY MARL, NWA, STEADY B, MC LYTE, KOOL G. RAP & POLO, SALT & PEPA, QUEEN LATIFAH, SWEET TEE, DOUG E FRESH, JAZ, 3 X DOPE. These were all like my favorite groups at the time and I was dabbling into writing rhymes myself.

By time I got to 12th grade, I made up my mind that I was going to New York to live to get some of the Hip Hop experience and to become a rapper while attending college. As I told before, my guidance-counselor talked me out of that. I went to college on an academic scholarship that he got me. I can thank Romeo for that also because I followed in his footsteps of making the honor roll from like the middle of ninth grade to the end of the eleventh. My senior year, forget about it, my grades dropped but not below a 2.5 average. I went to college and pledged Alpha Phi Alpha following in Romeo’s footsteps once again. He had pledged two years before me at University of Akron.

After my freshman year in college I visited N.Y. and decided from that moment on that I wanted to live in NYC. From my visits there, I discovered that it would be hard to find a woman there (I’d speak to young ladies there and they’d just laugh in my face) so while in college I started searching for my love whom I could take to New York with me when I graduated. I told myself at that time that I wanted a woman who wanted something out of life. My eleventh grade history teacher Mr. Snyder hipped us on to the fact that by the time we grew up, we wouldn’t be able to purchase a house (he was right, at least to date for myself) because they simply would be too damn expensive to afford by time we graduated college. He said we were gonna have to live in apartments or it was gonna take two to live comfortably in a nice house, have a nice car and 2.5 kids.

So in college my search began for my love. All I wanted was O.K. looks and someone willing to work toward a better life which was what I was doing. Here is what I ran into. The only girl I ever really liked in college was Lynette Treason, she was beautiful (still is to this day with husband and children) but she had a boyfriend. I ran into Rebecca, a white girl whom I’d messed with my senior year in high school. She provided me with great sex and finance during my college years. Rebecca, when I think about it, if I loved her, we would have made a great team. She’s a lawyer and I’m an accountant. She’s bringing home 50 to 70K in Ohio, so in New York that would be about 80 to 90K. I’m, of course, an underpaid black man making 36K when I should be making 45 to 50K. But I didn’t love her and I don’t love her so that is that. I ran into Lauren who had three kids, a bangin’ body, and good pussy that I could bust nuts in because she had her tubes tied. These were my two girlfriends for like two or three years.

My mom and grand mom never told me to be prejudice against women with kids, which is why I didn’t run the hell away from Lauren when she told me over the phone that she had three kids when I was – years old and she was –. I had never heard of that before. I grew to like Lauren a lot; it was never really love, it was lust/love. She started attending school while we were going together in an effort to try and better her life, but she couldn’t do it. I was stuck with Lauren thinking how I would be able to move her and her kids to New York with me when I graduated college. I had no answer. We eventually broke up due to other factors, but we ended up messing around off and on until last year. We even discussed marriage, but three kids, a man and a woman in New York City on like 50K wasn’t happening, and other factors also brought the situation to a head.

There was also this other girl I loved at first sight who attended Kent State University named Jackie. I’d see her when I’d be there at Alpha parties. She talked to me shyly and distant every time I seen her. I even got her number and I think talked to her once on the phone, but never nothing else. There was also Mirabelle who I loved at first sight, but she never gave me the time of day because I wasn’t a drug dealer and had no money. I see her from time to time now in Warren. She still looks good to me but she was messing around with my friend Flynn last time I checked.

The summer before my last quarter of college and being broken up with Rebecca and Lauren, I ran into Elizabeth. I liked Elizabeth and spent the whole summer with her. She was depressed from going through a divorce and being a single mom I guess since she had grown up with her mom and dad and brother in a nice home on the outskirts of our little city. We had a pretty boring summer together and our relationship ended in the fall.

I hooked up with Rhonda who was free because her boyfriend was in jail. I really liked Rhonda, but she wasn’t too enthusiastic about us since we both lived with our parents and she couldn’t figure out how we would spend quality time together so I broke it off with her, our little thing. I then got hooked up with Victoria and she was cool in the beginning. She got pregnant after three months of us messing around and during her pregnancy I discovered little personality differences between us so we broke up. I had graduated from college by this time.

Dumb ass me, wait until I graduate from college to get a girl pregnant who was not my wife and who decided on keeping the baby, and I didn’t pressure her about her decision, I just went along with it. We broke up, we got back together, and then we broke up again. If she would have been a little bit more understanding about her social and financial situation, and been willing to move to New York with me, we probably would still be together. She made it clear to me that New York was out of the question, especially with a child. Her social and financial situation was that she didn’t have a college degree, a job or money, but yet she wasn’t trying to make this better by doing a simple thing like taking a little job to make her situation better. Her pride wouldn’t let her take a job other than an office job. And in our town in Ohio, if you were black and knew nobody, even if you had a degree, you wouldn’t obtain an office job. Hell, I couldn’t even get one after I graduated college. But that, in a nut shell sums up us.

After her, I hooked up with Sausha. Sausha was also free because the father of her three children was in jail. She wanted to attend college to make a better life for herself but the obstacles of the kids and not being prepared academically for college kept leaving her short. I liked Sausha because she was easy going. She was in a worse situation than Victoria, but she would take a job from time to time to make her situation a little better, to get her kids some school clothes, etc. I thought about moving Sausha to NYC with me, but the three kids, and her not having any skill to obtain a good paying job, and also her burning desire to get through college held that from happening. We broke up finally last year. She claimed she couldn’t handle the long distance relationship and that she wanted to stay in Warren because it would be easier for her to go to school, etc. I probably would have brought her to NYC if she wouldn’t have decided not to come the last time I asked her.

So really to my luck, I don’t have three of someone else’s kids to worry about feeding, which when I think about it, those were ridiculous ideas, which would have ended in disaster. So through my searches, all I found was women who had kids and women who didn’t want to or couldn’t push to achieve their goals to come along with me to NYC because wasn’t no stopping me getting here. I was comin’ no matter what. So now I’m here, and just like I figured, it is virtually impossible to find a woman here or at least what I am looking for. After those four or five women in my past, I’m looking for a career job woman, with one kid or less, with car, own apartment, good looks, knows how to dress, good sex, and good companionship. I probably won’t find all that, but right now, I ain’t acceptin’ no less. I’ve accepted less all my life as far as the women I’ve been involved with. I got all of the above that I am looking for in a woman and I am lookin’ for someone of equal or better stature.

I’ve met a couple of friends here who I complain to that I ain’t got nobody and they say they can hook me up with some pussy. But see, pussy was my main downfall in the past. I was with Lauren two years steady for pussy. I was with Rebecca three years for some pussy. Don’t get me wrong, while I liked each of these women to some degree other than sex, the bottom line of what they really had to offer me was pussy. I don’t even want to fuck a woman unless she has some of the criteria mentioned up above that I am looking for.

And that is why I’m livin’ like I’m livin’. See cause if I mess with a girl that I really don’t like and we’re fucking and messing around and dating, I’ll start being with her and getting used to her. Like my friend Burton says, you get comfortable with it and stay in the situation blocking yourself from finding what you really want. I’ve done that for seven years of my life. It’s time out for that shit. And I’ve always knew the kind of woman I wanted. I’d see them all the time while I was on frat trips in DC, Atlanta, and even just hanging out in Cleveland. I’d even talk to them. But I’d always use the excuse of a long distance phone bill for not asking for their number. Or they would tell me they weren’t interested or that they had boyfriends. Or even at some points, I’d be so comfortable with Lauren, Rebecca and Sausha that I’d just not talk to them at all, saying to myself, “I’m making my thang work with them so I ain’t gonna bother with this and break they heart.”

My drive to do better and surround myself around those who had more than I had has gotten me everything I wanted: a college education, a new car, nice clothes. It has gotten me everything but a better woman and a house of my own. Well the drive for a better woman is on now. I have a female room-mate who I could probably have sex with and be going out with since she complains that she is so miserable. She is sexy, wears thong underwear, not that cute in the face but that’s o.k. I won’t make an advance or touch her or even think about her like that because she doesn’t have the criteria I’m lookin’ for. This hard bargaining has me womanless and pussyless. But in the end, it’s got to pay off. I’m strivin’ for better. The story of my life. 2019 IT HAS NOT GOTTEN BETTER!

HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE MAIN LIFE EVENTS (PARENTS, MONEY, FRIENDS, GIRLFRIENDS, HEROES, IDLES, MENTORS, DREAMS) THAT GOT YOU TO THIS POINT IN YOUR LIFE?

Jrnl Entry No. 5.6.2004

All day I can’t find the motivation to do anything but sleep. I guess I feel depressed for not being at work, or thinking that my professional, corporate, 40 – 50 thousand dollar a year life is over, and now what? I have completely written a documentary which I would like to put into film production. I have a director in mind but I don’t know if I want to work with him, a corny white kid. But then I think, maybe a corny white kid is exactly what I need to get that shit off the ground, get some funding for it. And then again when I think about how I am being discriminated against in my search for a job, I don’t want to work with any white people period. I’ve gotten two request for telephone interviews. That shit is nothing but a way for them to try and tell by your voice if you are black or not, and once they hear that you are, they can at least say they called you, discussed your resume and decided not to give you a call back.

I tried finding part time work before. I went up and down 125th St in Harlem and handed out my resume searching for part-time work and got nothing. I applied at Eckard drug store right up the street from where I stay, and they didn’t call me back. I’ve been in the village looking for work at the Atrium and the Lounge and at the Guess store and at H&M. It seems as if no one is willing to hire a black man in New York. I guess niggaz have stolen so much from their employers that no one any longer hires us.

I figured that my accounting degree would save me from some of that discrimination in finding part-time work, but that has not been the case. They really don’t intend for niggaz to survive in New York I see. Even with a part-time job, it is not great living by any standard, and they don’t want to give a nigga that. I guess it is too crowded here and they figure if they don’t give niggaz the least of the jobs that maybe we will go away. I don’t know what to do. Watrina is complaining that she can’t buy clothing for her daughter and that she has no money. I can’t go to the studio without any money to start recording my album so that I can get this label started which I have incorporated. I need money to buy CDs to reproduce, and covers, and posters, flyers, stickers, and Vinyl press ups. I can’t make a move regarding this business unless I get a full time job making $40,000 or more and that seems nowhere in the near future.

I’m currently working on my business plan which seems to be coming out nicely written. Once I have it written, I don’t know what I’m going to do from there. I thought about presenting it to my cousin Romeo and his wife for a $5000.00 investment. But they be trying to act like they broke and I don’t 
know if they will give me the money. Once I have it fully written, I need to work on a presentation, which will take me probably a month or so. Time is running out for me. I have $45.00 to my name. If I was stupid I’d probably kill myself or start taking drugs. But I’m a so-called smart nigga, but not that smart because I don’t know what I’m going to do to get up out of this situation.

I seen Heather B of the 1st Mtv Real World in Jay Z’s club 40/40. She used to have a little rap career. I asked what I gotta do to get her to record a song for me. She gave me the brush off like I wasn’t serious,  handed me an e-mail address. I e-mailed her yesterday. I want this album to be a compilation album but I got 10 songs picked out that I can write and record myself if need be. I don’t think a bank or investors have ever given money to a Hip Hop label on the cold front. I have thoughts that maybe I can be the first to get official funding from a bank or group of investors if I present my business plan right. I don’t have an inkling of collateral , which will make money hard to come by. I don’t have prior industry 
experience to lead off of. All I got is strong determination to make my dream come true of getting into this Hip Hop shit somehow someway before I die.

In the next 10 years it is my goal to be a Hip Hop Label Mogul with millions of dollars in worth behind my name. By the time I’m –, I want to be doing it for real. In the next five years, I want to be at my peak in record sales for my label. I think that is a realistic time frame. I got about 4 and a half years from right now to make it happen, I feel so strongly that I know this Hip Hop shit like the back of my hand. No one is going to give me the opportunity to prove that so I guess I have to prove it to them as well as  myself.

I’m trying to wait this unemployment shit out, but it is getting hard. I set around all day like I’m in a prison cell with no TV or no entertainment. I often say to myself that I should have been a drug dealer 
who would either be successful with millions of dollars right now, or in jail. Hell, I went the straight route and I still feel like I’m in jail. I wouldn’t complain so much if I was actually in jail instead of in my house  not doing shit. It’s not that I’m even bored because I am not. I’d just rather be doing something else during the day than sitting in the house thinking about my music career, my job situation and my  label business plan and how I’m going to get money to start this business.

I often wish and dream that I’d hit the Mega Millions Lotto or just the New York Lotto; then all these bullshit worries will go away and I can concentrate on some new worries. I’m starting to get grey hair in my head. My dick don’t get as hard as it used to. My girlfriend is not as interesting as she used to be. All  she does is clean up, cook, tend to her daughter and sleep. I try to communicate to her that shit is not sexy to me, every time I see her she is washing dishes or folding clothes or on her hands and knees scrubbing the bathroom floors and walls. I guess I’m just going through a phase in life right now. I’ve had my peak in life during and after college; now is the downturn, where either a nigga goes crazy, gets a divorce, robs a bank, goes on drugs, or becomes an alcoholic. Me, I’m just trying to ride this shit  out. It’s not even that hard, I’m just tired of being patient that’s all. 


Some nights I don’t get in the bed until 5 A.M. I need to stop that shit because I know it is taking a toll on me and causing me to age. I know everybody has to age but I don’t wanna speed up the process anymore than Ihave to. Tomorrow is another day to feel lost. I told myself that I might go to Best Buy and put in an application there. Deep down in my heart, I did not come to New York to work part-time making $6 to $8 dollar. I may as well go back to Ohio for that shit. I came to New York to prosper, to get that push I need to actually get off my ass and get some real riches because you need them if you are going to live in this city. But New York has flipped the script on me. New York has me jobless, just dreaming. I guess that’s why they call it the Big City of Dreams. That is all that I am doing right now 
is dreaming. I don’t have no resources what so ever to make any of my dreams come true except a dollar to play the lotto, and everyone knows that is the biggest of pipe dreams that will never come true.

I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I try to think what to do and my mind draws a blank. I guess that is what my sleeping and sitting in silence during the  day is all about, trying to dig deep within myself to figure out a way to get out of this whole I’m in. But my efforts are coming up empty. I don’t know man, but I got to do something. This can’t be my life for the rest of my life. I will not let it be. I guess maybe I’ll have to start all over like I’m in high school, work a part-time job and turn tragedy into triumph. I hate to do it but going back to Warren, Ohio is not an option. New York is a perfect home 
away from where I grew up at, not that far away where I can’t visit, not that close where I’d be home every other week like I still live there. I got to make this happen for me, I got to!

Jrnl Entry No. 4.21.2004

I’ve incorporate my production company named for my mother, grandfather and grandmother, Leanne, Michael & Ella Productions Inc.” I received the incorporation papers in the mail; I filed for federal and state S Corporation status; I’ve read into what state taxes have to be paid, as well as taxes to be paid once I hire employees and my payroll reaches more than $300 per quarter. I’ve started working on my business plan, which I’m stopped dead in my tracks because I need market research and facts as to the 
buying habits of the Hip Hop community. Official market research studies, which can be purchased from Market Research.Com for $200.00 to $5000.00, money which I don’t have. I figure I’ll go the library and look up some in Billboard magazine and they should give me some sales information and future predictions concerning Hip Hop music, which I need for my business plan.

So the main project that will be sphere headed by my company are a Documentary which I have completely written, and need to get a director to film and edit and help me get financing based upon realistic cost projections. I have also planned my album, which it looks like I am going to have to write myself. I have ten good songs that I would like to record, and I’m going to include five instrumentals. Once I get it recorded, which shouldn’t be a problem, I need financing to market and promote the album.

It is becoming quite clear to me that an accounting job is nowhere in my immediate future. I’m living 
off of table scraps right now as far as money goes. I’m constantly thinking about this company that I want to start and be successful. I read Donald Trump’s new book “How to Get Rich,” which really had nothing to do with telling you anything about getting rich. I’m glad I didn’t purchase it. I read it in two days at the Barnes and Nobles book store on Broadway. The book did kind of tell you to have passion about any business that you are running especially if it’s your own. Along with that passion, know every 
little detail possible about that business. You have to work hard because no one is going to work harder than you to make you rich. The book was sort of inspiring but really had no good details concerning gaining and keeping wealth.

So as it is now, I spend approximately 3 to 4 hours a day reading something to broaden my business knowledge or writing my business plan. That time to me is really not enough, but I’m stagnated because I don’t have any real money to really start doing anything as far as business goes. I mean without money, what can I really do beside plan and write down ideas. I need money to make them tangible, but all in all, I’m excited about Leanne, Michael & Ella Productions Inc. and working to make it into a major label, or at least getting it to be a major force in the music industry to be recognized.

I’ve thought about acting and modeling but getting into those professions will probably be as hard as getting into Hip Hop, which I haven’t been able to get into Hip Hop, which is why I’m seriously starting 
my own company. Here I am –, I have nothing but dreams. I need to get more serious about taking the GMAT test starting MBA courses in the fall. As far as I see, that is the only real step that I can take to secure me an aiiight future. Yeah, I know they say work hard at your passion and it will come to pass. While I have faith in my passion, my dream will slowly materialize, and too slow for my life. If I was — or younger and in my current situation, I’d be fine, probably run with it. But I’m — living with and off of my girlfriend and that is not cool.

I saw Denzel Washington yesterday in the Village on Broadway and Prince. I recognized him trying to be very incognito. I just calmly walked in front of him and the two men who were lazily body guarding him in an effort to keep his presence incognito; I extended my hand out to him, he looked at me and he extended his hand back and we shook.  I’m not a star struck individual. At age –, I know that celebrities are real people just like I am who happen to be a bit more fortunate than myself, to be living there dreams. I only make it a point to speak to those celebrities that I admire their work and their career. Like I seen Eric Sermon of EPMD walking past me in Joe’s Pub night club and I shook his hand. I’ve seen Dana Dane twice on different occasions, and because of his legendary status (one of the, probably the 1st solo MC to have gold album sales), I have to extend my hand out to him every time I see him.

I don’t know if I’m cut out for this relationship that I am involved in. It’s a cute little arrangement I have here. The perfect little light skinned attractive woman whom everybody likes. She has the perfect little 
light skinned daughter that everybody like. Her daughter and my daughter get along really well. I’ve even known her daughter since she was like 2 and a half, the only other man in her mother’s life besides her father. I feel an obligation to be in this for the long run. I used to feel love about the situation, but that love was damaged by a too close for comfort friendship she had or has with another man. In addition to that, she does not trust me. I feel like every time I tell her something as far as me going somewhere without her that she feels I am lying and going somewhere else. I don’t like the feeling of not being trusted. She also tries to do things that I do like if I stay out all day and all night without calling, she’ll do the same thing the next day or in the near future. I don’t call her because it seems 
like she private investigates what I tell her. If I don’t tell her anything, there is nothing to investigate. Denzel said on The View this morning that his marriage works and has worked for 20 years due to trust and patience. I do not think neither of us has trust nor patience. I know I don’t have patience for anything that is making me unhappy, and as I’ve done before, I’ll leave it alone quickly and start something else.

So I’m — and having this conversation with myself. I thought I was a gentle man, and that I would be in a successful loving relationship and happy. But it is not that way for me. But compared to most people, I think my relationship woes are light. I guess I’m looking for perfection and that is not possible. I kind 
of think I might end up alone, well not alone no time soon, but just in old age alone, not married for 20, 30 years and dying with someone as my long loved wife. My future is not bright right now. I have high hopes though. I did have a job interview last Friday with a British company called Financial Times. It seems like a cool company that I could grow with; I want to work for them. It was a British woman who got me hired at the Advertising agency two years ago. Maybe Brits are the only people who are not subjecting me to discrimination that I believe other companies and employment agencies are subjecting me to. I’ve been jobless for a year now. Many agencies have called me but no job has resulted. I thought I’d never feel the effects of being a black man, but now, sad to say, I believe I am right now in New York City.

Jrnl Entry No. 7.27.2001

Well what is there in my life right now? I have put the smack down on Watrina and let her know that if she really likes me, she better quit with this “just friends” shit, and stop talkin’ to other niggaz on her cell phone while I am right there with her.

I just completed my resume cover letter to send out to some record companies. I’m trying to get a job at J-Records, Clive Davis’s company. This guy Clive is going crazy. He has like five acts out, all R&B, at the same time and they are all doing well: O-Town is platinum, Jimmy Cozier who has a hot song on the radio. Busta Rhymes Flip Mode Entertainment is gonna be distributed by J-Records. Now with all this activity going on, they need accountants hopefully, and I want in. I think that job would be the answer to some of my problems right now, or a job at a label that I am familiar with and know a little something about that has a Hip Hop and R&B department.

My job just frustrates me more and more each day. I have been given the warning that if my performance doesn’t improve, I’ll be fired. I think they are gonna end up firing me because I have no interest in this place and building materials. The people here are not people I can relate to: Italians, a gay guy, a Hindu Indian, another gay guy who tries to talk like he understands black language to a certain degree, a Jewish man, an Irish man, and a Spanish Columbian girl. I don’t give a fuck about communicating with none of these muthafuckaz. And as I’ve written, we pretty much don’t communicate, don’t even speak.  

My daughter went on strike talking to me for like a week and a half. She wouldn’t talk on the phone to me twice when I called. I called like three times the next week and she wasn’t there over her grandmother and grandfather’s house because I suppose she and her mother have been spending time at their new house as Janelle calls it. Victoria called me and let Janelle talk. I asked her for her phone number and address since it was becoming apparent that she just wasn’t forking over the information without me asking for it. She said, “you’ll get it.” I’m like can I have it now? So she gave me the phone number. That’s all I need for right now because I ain’t got nothing to send her in the mail. I don’t know what the hell Victoria thinks I want from her. My daughter sounds older and older each time I talk to her. It’s a joyful noise when I get her on the phone. I love it and I try to keep her talking to me as long as possible asking her questions, and her only answer is, “I don’t know.”

I told Watrina that I don’t plan on having any more kids. She asked me, “If you and I were to get married, you wouldn’t want to have a kid with me?’ I told her that I can’t afford it financially or emotionally, another split up with a child of mine. Things go bad, it’s all fucked up and I ain’t takin’ another chance with another kid, of me and the mother not ending up together. I think personally that a lot of women have kids for all the wrong reasons; some even have kids by a well-to-do gentleman just to get a child support check. It will never happen to me again. NEVER!

I just got off the phone with Watrina. She wants to come and see me when I get home from work. I told her that I didn’t want to see her with red hair that she got put in her head to go to Jamaica. I told her I don’t like weave. I don’t like weave. I will not approach a woman with weave in her hair. I cannot see myself falling in love with a woman who does not have her natural hair unless I compromise, or it looks really natural. And even still, I will crack on it till the end of time. You can’t run your fingers through that shit or rub it, nothing. I’m about to stop telling people that Watrina is my girl and just refer to her as “this bitch I’m fuckin’ with”; because we really ain’t got too much serious going on at least not on her part. She likes me but she ain’t thinkin’ on the level I’m on right now about relationships. She’s a nice girl, but she ain’t lookin’ for what I want so whatever is gonna be with us will just be.

My life is a big ass question right now. Will I find my wife? Will I get on in this music game? Will I stay in New York for much longer? Will I find a job that I’ll take serious and excel at, particularly at a record label? Watrina mentioned to me that she doesn’t understand how people say that they are searching for a wife or husband, you just meet that person. I started to explain to her that she was that person to have: intelligence, security, stable, good looks (maybe), good sex (maybe), etc. You search for a person who has as many of those qualities as possible. Or you want a person who just comes into your life on a humbug and you get into a relationship with them, to have those qualities. If a person doesn’t have the qualities that you want in a mate, you two are not gonna make it.

As to the question of how much longer will I stay in New York, I don’t know. I’m thinking of making a career change to Jr. High School math teacher. I think I would like to do something like that, but I don’t know if I’m gonna stay in New York permanently because you can’t make it here unless you are rich or very well paid. It seems as if I will not get very well paid as an accountant. And everybody says that teachers are underpaid, but yet when I was in school, they all drove new cars. New York is the pits: expensive, unsociable, crowded. Those three things make this not a very nice place to be trying to make a living in. I’m just barely surviving right now here.

Watrina has an idea to start a denim manufacturing company. I told her I’d try and help her collect information and help in any way I can. Hopefully she’s serious and we really do this. That could be my ticket to financial freedom. Financial freedom only comes through working independently for yourself.; working for someone else if that someone is a friend of yours or they just like your work ethic will also get you somewhere. But for the most part, working for someone else, you’ll be working hard and getting really no recognition for your work. I just thought of an idea to start a Hip Hop and R&B Distribution company. I wonder what would it take to get that off the ground. This thought is only coming as a result of Watrina’s idea to start a clothing manufacturing company. She’s in the fashion industry and I love the music industry that I just can’t seem to get a piece of. It is right here in my face, but I can’t grab a hold to it and pull myself in, and it seems as if no one else wants to pull me in neither.

I still got Windexter on my mind. He is friends with DJ Clue’s manager and the A&Rs who will be working out of Desert Strom Records. I’m about to sell my soul to get into this music business. I came up with the idea just to break the ice that I should sell my tracks for $5,000 off the books for a track on an album that sells platinum at a royalty rate of $.05; that is cheating myself out of $45,000. But no one is gonna pay a no name, no hit Hip Hop producer $50,000 so I got to do what I got to do to get in this game.

There is this BET/BILLBOARD Hip Hop & R&Bsummit at the Hilton Hotel on the 6th Ave Aug 28 – Aug 30 2001. It cost $500 for registration so I won’t be registering to get in to attend any events. I’ll probably just go and hang outside. I know madd kids is gonna be out there rapping and shit. Maybe I’ll pick up an artist that I can work with to rhyme over my songs that I’ve produced. I’m working on this banging joint right now. It was initially supposed to be called the Harlem Shake, but it’s too slow to be a Harlem Shake dance song. I need Tilly to play toms over it for me. It’s gonna come out dope, just another song to put in my vault for nobody to listen to. Maybe one day I’ll stop but no time soon, and then again, maybe I’ll never stop. I’ll just continue to make songs all my life just as something to do in my spare time even if I never get on as a producer.

Me and Watrina are supposed to starting working out in the morning at the track in Astoria Park over by where we live. I really didn’t want to do this because I have to be up at 6 A.M. running around a track and doing push-ups and sit-ups and shit. But then I thought it would be a great way for us to expand our relationship and get closer by spending more time together. My frat brother Mortier Maison said he went and worked out with his wife the morning after he met her and they ended up married. So I figured I’d give it a try. Watrina is falling for me more and more each day I think. But then again, this is New York and bitches and niggaz got games for ya ass. So where as I think she is being sincere, she could just be spending time with me for something to do and not really liking me at all, just a fling. In my case, I like her so I’m just flowing with the flow. You know I love my damn self so if she flakes out on me, I’ll be alright regardless.

But sometimes I wonder am I a fool. It seems as if I have been trying to get a woman and make her mine for me to marry in the future ever since I was about 23 years old. There was Lauren whom I thought I loved and wanted to try and spend the rest of my life with. Then there was Victoria who ended up pregnant and I was thinking maybe she could be the one. Then there was Sausha who was very nice and I loved her the most, more than the two up above. She was just behind me as far as life goes; no gainful employment skills, no college education. She wasn’t willing to follow me along to NY to try and live my dream partly because she couldn’t and maybe also partly because she didn’t want to, and maybe partly on my part not wanting her to also. Now I have Watrina whom I think is very nice, considerate, doesn’t seem to be a dumb materialistic girl like a lot of NY black people are. I am thinking that we could last awhile. I seem to think this about these women, but two years later it seems to end for some reason or another. What is it in me that wants to have a steady woman? Why don’t I want to be a player? Maybe it’s a result of aids and the fact that I hate sex with a condom. Maybe I’m just a sucka for love.

All of life’s little questions, or rather my life questions. I ain’t got the answers. I ain’t searching for them too hard neither, or maybe I am which is why I feel depressed and down sometimes. I wish my life would all come together: money, one woman who I love and she loves me, nice house, nice care, nice investment for the future. Maybe one woman is the start to all the rest that I think will give me piece of mind I don’t know.

Jrnl Entry No. 3.8.2001

I went to a poetry / prose reading last night featuring Nathaniel Mackey in Philosophy Hall at Columbia University. I have never heard of this guy in my life. I was just going to have something to do, to get out from  my apartment and perhaps meet some intelligent black people, or better year, intelligent black women. It was to start at 8 P.M. I got there at 7:15 P.M. I left home early in anticipation of traffic. When I got there, the room was empty except for a few people who were setting up a video camera and the speakers, etc. I just chilled and figured I’d wait for a fly honey to come walking up so that I could get my conversation on with her. I waited, and I waited, and I waited, but none arrived. As time reached 7:45 P.M., I sat down behind the girl running the camera and waited for the show to begin.

In walked this tall light skinned man and his son who was just a little shorter than he was. These two white women who were sitting a seat down from me started looking over there at them and started having a conversation. “Oh, look at him, he looks like a young man, not a kid anymore. He looks like his father, look at him.” They were so fascinated with this kid. He came and sat next to me and asked me was I a student at Columbia University. I told him no. Then he asked me was I a student period. I told him I was twenty-seven years old, graduated from college. He said he was 17 deciding what college to attend; Columbia, where his dad is professor or Jazz Studies or something like that, and he could go there for free. He was thinking of Hampton University to get the black experience and party with black kids, as not to be bored to death like I was in college for the most part. He said he wanted to get away from his parents. I told him that New York was the ultimate experience. He’s not gonna experience much that he already hasn’t seen or heard in New York. It would be good to see how different another place is from New York, but for fun and excitement, nothing tops the NY.

I told him my story of moving to New York to become a producer. He said that he raps occasionally but nothing serious. I told him that I once wanted to be a rapper when I was his age. He asked what type of rap I like. I told him that Pharoahe Monch was my favorite MC at the time, and he quickly agreed. He told me that I should go to some Hip Hop thing that takes place on Sundays. He gave me the name and street that it was on. Right before the show started he asked me to kick a rhyme for him so I spit a verse that was a year old. He said it was hot of course. See people who don’t know me or meet me first as an MC, they respect my skill. But if I don’t let people know that I rap, they never suspect it and don’t take me serious when I say I can. Of course of I can, I been doin’ this shit for 14 years now.

The show started with Nathaniel Mackey reading some poetry he wrote in relation to a couple of jazz artist. He read some of his published stories made up of the character “N” who writes talking about his experiences with music and his Jazz band. Mr. Mackey read different stuff for about an hour then they opened the forum up for questioning. I asked was his character “N” inspired by Langston Hughes character “Simple”. He said yes indirectly, and threw some other name at me that it was inspired by. “Simple” is what it reminded me of since I had read some “Simple” stories about six months earlier. When the show was over they had a few refreshments at a table: some cheese and crackers and soda and orange juice.

I was going to talk to the kid some more. His name was Doug. He told me that a lot of people there knew him because his dad was a professor at the school, and I guess a very sociable guy with white people and had his son around them a lot. I couldn’t talk to him though because over came the two white ladies who sat next to me during the reading, and they surrounded him while he was getting refreshments and I was waiting for him to get off line. So I stood over to the side and just ate my food and looked around the room at the people. There were no intelligent black women there who met my taste so I didn’t talk to anyone. I was just waiting to talk to Doug but these ladies didn’t seem to want to leave him alone talking about college and what school was he gonna go to. It was like in the Spike Lee movie “He Got Game” with everybody being so anxious about Jesus Shuttlesworth and what college he was going to play basketball at. At one point I started feeling like these ladies were guarding him from me, the black Hip Hop guy with no education, just a thug off the street who happened to wonder into the room. I was the only one in the room who looked Hip Hop, but that’s the way I roll, and even though a little uncomfortable I repented myself to the fullest. The one lady seemed infatuated with him. She was the one who said he looked like a young man and not a kid anymore. I wouldn’t doubt if she wanted to fuck him or give him head in the near future. That is how much she seemed to be into this kid. So after standing there for 15 minutes I went over and interrupted the ladies and told Doug that I was about to go and I wished him good luck, shook his hand and left.

My daughter Janelle and my mom came and stayed with me for two weeks. It was love having my daughter around. She’s not a bad child at all. I thought I was gonna see another side of her that I couldn’t see during our weekend or day visits in Ohio, but it was just the same. She likes to play and talk and eat. She doesn’t bother shit that she is not supposed to like tapes or CDs. She also likes to watch movies. We watched Toy Story every night before she went to bed. I read her stories before she went to sleep. She wanted to take a bath every night and put her jammies on, as she calls them. At times when I didn’t feel like giving her a bath, she insisted, so I had to oblige.

I took her to Sesame Street at Madison Square Garden and she enjoyed the show. I’d take her out just about every night with me to the grocery store or where ever. We visited my friend Tilly and played drums over his house. She said she was gonna play with his cat, but when we got over there she was scared of it and crying an jumping around on the couch every time the cat got near her. I rode her over the Queen Bridge where she could see all the city lights in the sky line and she liked that a lot. You can see the city from outside my apartment in Queens and she asked me could we go over there the night I was bringing her back from Tilly’s house. I took her over there because she wasn’t sleepy and ready to go home. I rode through the Met Life Insurance building and she liked that a lot also. I took her to the FAO Swartz toy store where I thought she was gonna go crazy asking me to buy her stuff but she didn’t. She asked me to buy her this $60 Angelica sing-a-long doll which I couldn’t afford at the time. I got her a slinky and a saxophone that plays notes and songs of Sesame Street when you push the keys. I took her to walk around in Times Square where I took a few pictures of her. She didn’t complain one time that she wanted to go home, which means that she loves me and my company just as much as her mothers’. That is a good thing that has come out of me fighting in court to see her and spend as much time with her as I can. It was wonderful. I could keep her if I needed to with no problem. I had to do her hair because the braids her mom had put in her hair before she left Ohio started to frizz up like after one week. I did it pretty good too.

I used to do her hair when she’d stay with me for the weekend in Ohio, but I thought it would be different since her hair is longer, but I did pretty well. I was proud of myself. I took off work the two Fridays that she was here to spend the day with her. I took her to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum on the last Friday she was here. She didn’t like it and neither did I. It was pretty boring. She ate good while she was here: oatmeal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and mostly chicken for dinner because that is all I cook these days. I’m looking forward to her coming back to stay another two weeks with me. I may just take a week’s vacation next time I get her and drive to Atlanta or something to see my dad or maybe to Mississippi to see my folks there.

I wish I could have had a family, but I guess I’m just an unfortunate one. I ain’t trying to have no mo kidz. I’m about to try and get my balls clipped, which will mean I won’t have kidz by my wife if I ever get married. I think it is bullshit that you can fall in love and get married for practically nothing if you go to the justice of the peace. But when you want to get out of it, you have to pay $700 – $2000 in lawyer fees. You might have to pay alimony, etc. I don’t want to get caught in all that shit. And I’ve learned dealing with Victoria that a woman’s baby is her baby. A man only has rights through a court room and a judge. When it all goes bad, if you don’t have a court order in regards to your kidz, you ain’t got shit. I ain’t gonna be like stupid bitches who have three kidz by niggaz who don’t want to be bothered, trying to be humanitarians, giving birth to beautiful children. I’ve learned from this one experience and I ain’t gonna experiment again, weather it could come out good or bad. I ain’t takin’ another chance.

Jrnl Entry No. 8.4.2000

I don’t know where was the last place I left off about my life. Today is the day before my –birthday. I’ve been here in New York for a year. I still haven’t gotten any pussy in this town yet. And I’m not only out for just pussy. I’m actually looking for a long lasting relationship to grow into marriage, but the girls who I like and talk to are either from out of town, have a boyfriend (so they say), or both. I guess I don’t like New York girls because every time someone catches my eye that I actually go and approach and talk to, they are from Jersey or somewhere else, never New York. Most New York women wear weave and make-up, and those are just two things that I can’t have in a woman to be mine.

I’ve made a few steps in advancing my production career. I’ve given my tape to many rappers: Rampage of the Flip Mode Squad; Lord Have Mercy formally of the Flip Mode Squad: Raekwan of the Wu-Tang Clan. I gave a tape to Special K of the productions team “Teddy Ted and Special K”; Black Rob’s brother who is also his manager and an MC down with Black Rob who goes by the name of Poo Cabroxi. I gave a tape to this girl I planned on dating but she worked too much and at bad hours. Her MC name is MINK. She called me and said that she wanted to put out her own CD and wanted to use some of my beats. She came over and got another snippet tape of my newest, latest. I told her I wouldn’t charge her in exchange for her letting me get a track on a majorly distributed album if she gets a deal like that, or just hook me up with industry connects that will help me get production deals. Poo Cabroxi called me and said that he has a meeting with Puff Daddy, and wants to hear some of my beats. I’m going to tell him the same thing as far as charge go. I am not in this to make money off of demos. I want to make major doe, so if an MC doesn’t have a major or even minor distribution deal, I don’t want nothing but the connections of contact for future projects.

I’ve decided it’s time to cut Ohio loose and live here in New York for real. Over the past year I have been home at least once a month to see my daughter, Sausha, Lauren or Rebecca. I’m not at all attracted to Rebecca so she is the first to be gone off of my list of people not to see anymore. I let her come to visit me twice. She looks disgusting in clothing, like she is still pregnant, and that combined with our complicated past just turns me completely off. She is just lazy or works too much. She eats healthy, but she doesn’t exercise often enough to get rid of that stomach. I guess she figures as long as she can suck a good dick, especially mine, and keep her kidz father, Thomas, happy, even though she claims she can’t stand him; she figures she doesn’t need to work out. I made the mistake of coming in her the last time she was here. She has gotten pregnant three times since we have started seeing each other a year ago, but she took some pills called Cytotec, which is for ulcers and cause pregnant women to have miscarriages. She claims she is getting attached to me even though she knows we can never be nothing again, so I hope she doesn’t get pregnant and try to keep it and me in her life. She has two kidz and she says she wants a third, but not right now, and not by Thomas; which he can’t have anymore because he is fixed. I’m gonna wait till she has her period and tell her that I do not want to see her anymore.

Sausha, every time I left from seeing her, she made up her mind not to talk to me anymore, and she told me that when she moved into her new house, she wasn’t giving me the phone number or the address. I decided that I could live without her too so I was going to be done with her.

I then went on a quest to try and get Lauren to move in with me in New York. She wanted to get married. I said that I would marry her, believing that I could be happy with her. I even bought her a little engagement ring. She wanted to have a wedding which I did not in the first place, and plus we couldn’t afford it. At the same time my cousin was having trouble with his wife and she was putting him out of the house. They never lived together before they got married or even had a long relationship. This scared me, and I told Lauren that we should try living together before we get married because it’s a whole different life, especially in New York.

She was so dead set on getting married. We argued back and forth. I gave in, and two weeks later, I changed my mind again because marriage and kidz are not beneficial to a man in marriage when a divorce happens, and I explained to her that I was looking at the overall picture of happiness and sadness. In sad times, especially if a divorce occurs, a man loses. I told her that I was still willing to marry her if she was that dead set on it. After her hearing my discussion and reading a few letters I had written her, she decided to scrap the marriage idea and sign up for the army. And she said there was no changing her mind. She said I had changed my mind enough and this was it. Our discussions got heated, and no compromise was being made on her part. I said forget it too, and asked Sausha to move with me because we had discussed it before.

Sausha said that my asking was a sudden change of heart, and that she had plans on moving into her house, work and go to school. She had forgotten about the idea of moving with me, but she would think about it, and she wanted me to really think about it also. When I first moved I told her to come with me but she didn’t want to. Then, she thought about it and we had a trial week the week of Thanksgiving 1999 with two of her kidz. I didn’t like it, and neither did she. We broke up after that and I didn’t talk to her for two or three months. We eventually ended up back talking, but there was no mention of her moving with me. This was when she made her other plans to try and get rid of me, but she couldn’t.

At the time after I was fed up with Lauren, and I asked Sausha to move in with me, Sausha told me one day on the phone that she wasn’t moving with me. She called me collect on the phone one Saturday night but wasn’t home for me to call her back. I called her house for three days after that and she wasn’t answering her phone and she didn’t call me anymore. It was at this point that I said, “fuck both of them and their three kidz.” I didn’t call anyone. I made up my mind to just chill, and if a woman came along, fine, if not, fine too.

Two weeks had gone past and Lauren wrote me a letter that I received on a Friday saying that she needed me and wanted to see me. I called her and told her to leave her house since she had gotten rid of her kidz thinking that I would get the letter sooner and she would be leaving work that Friday. She said she would come Saturday and take off work Monday, and I said I would take off also.

She came and we had our usual good sex, and we went out and did little shit like go to the bookstore and read. We talked of how would we all fit into the apartment of mine. But she still said that she was going to the military. I told her if she goes to the military that is it for us. First off, it makes no sense for a — year old mother of three to go to the military. She said she feels she has to go to accomplish something in her life and the military would help her do that. We stopped talking about it. She went home and wrote me a little letter with a $25 check in it to make up for the $50 I spent on an amusement park trip that I had forgotten about when she called, and I couldn’t go to because she was there in New York with me.

Sausha called me Saturday collect while Lauren was there and I accepted and talked to her for a few minutes. She gave me her number but said she wasn’t sure if it was the right one, which I could understand because she has no reason to call her own house and maybe she just didn’t have it memorized at the time. I told her that I would call her later. I was going to call that Monday after Lauren left. Sausha called again that Saturday night and I didn’t accept the call because I figured I had the number to call her back, but it was the wrong number. She hasn’t called again.

I think Lauren is still going to the military, but she just wanted to smooth things over with me before she left. Because before she wrote that letter and came to see me, I had no plans of ever talking to her again and she knew that. Maybe she wants to keep a little tab on me so maybe we can get together after she is finished with the military. Well I’m not stressing her anymore. She can do whatever she wants. If I am available when she gets out of the military, I probably will be with her. But a fine handsome young man like myself, I doubt if I will be available after a few months or a few years. This bad luck with women in New York has got to stop soon, and if it doesn’t, I’ll be content focusing on my music. I’m not sweating women no more. I’m very relaxed with the issue at this point in time.

Sausha and Lauren. You may say I don’t love neither one of them, I’m just using thing as a crutch until I find someone I really want. Truth is, that may be true to some degree. I love them both, but they have no careers or solid ways to help me take care of their children. And that is the only thing that stops me when thinking of being with them. I’ve been able to get along really well with both of them. Lauren has the better body and better sex, which is why I made the choice to leave Sausha alone and try to be with her.

One thing that they both do that turns me on and every man probably loves this; they both wear thong underwear for me. I think I have a fetish for thong underwear. When I see a girl wearing tight jeans or tight hip hugger leggings; if she doesn’t have on a thong with them, she can forget about me approaching her. Sausha didn’t wear them until I started getting on her about wearing cotton little girl panties. Lauren didn’t wear them neither at first. I had to coach both of them into wearing them. These two women will do what makes me happy, and I like to keep them happy, and that is the main ingredient with both of them, and that is why I love them. And I am at the point now where I don’t want to coach anybody else on what makes me happy because it is really hard work. And that is probably why I will go back to either Sausha or Lauren if they come back to me. Now I talk to women that I know I am attracted to on sight. I am very picky at this point when it comes to talking to a new girl that I have to approach, and maybe that is why I haven’t found anyone. But in any case, like I said, I’m chilling.

I haven’t seen my daughter Janelle in like three or four months. Her mom wouldn’t agree to let me keep her in New York every other month for two weeks instead of me driving to Ohio once or twice a month to spend a weekend with her. That didn’t seem fair to me, so I said I would not be taking care of Janelle no more since she wants to put all these restrictions on me when it comes to spending time with her. She said fine, and even told her friends that I would not be in my daughter’s life anymore. I got me another lawyer and we set a court date for July 6, 2000. Victoria has the date pushed back to Sept 1, 2000. I hear she is also moving down south to Atlanta. We are going to have to work out a serious joint custody program if she moves down south. I have no plans on not seeing my daughter as much as possible before she starts all day school.

Maybe Victoria feels threatened that Janelle will love me more or hold me in a higher light than she. Victoria has been selfish with Janelle every since she was born. I may be selfish and stubborn, but I would never be selfish and stubborn with a child, especially to the other parent if I had custody. It will be alright though. I know I will have a relationship with my daughter one day, sooner or later no matter what her mother does to try and stop it. I’ve tried to be cordial with Victoria and her family, but I’m through with being nice. I am not speaking to any of them again. And if they have the nerve to ask why, I’ll tell them. All I ever asked of Victoria was to let me spend time with my daughter. I’ve never given her any trouble about money for Janelle. I never complained about child support. I never bothered Victoria about who she seen as a boyfriend. I haven’t bothered her about anything except spending time with my daughter. I guess I’m wrong for that. She may be trying to punish me for past thing in our relationship, but that is childish, and hopefully she will realize that, and realize that my daughter needs me in her life, what little I can be in it, and I also need my daughter in my life. The past is the past, there is nothing between us but a child who needs both of us, so let it be.

This year, I’m focusing on my job, my music, and my total life in New York. I’m not running home to see any women, I’m not asking any women from Warren to come and live with me. I’m just chilling. Hopefully things go smooth with my visitation case, and my daughter will be a bigger part in my life. At age –, this is what I’ve grown to. My last year, 1999, in New York was half a waste for what time I did spend here.

Jrnl Entry 9.13.2000 “MY HIP HIP STORY” PART VIII

Yeah, I live in New York now and have been here for a year. That feeling I used to have when I’d visit of walking around blending in as a New Yorker with Timberlands on and baggy jeans caused me to move here. I am finally here now, and it’s not feeling good at all. My plan was to move here, find me a couple of women to chill with, and make moves in the music industry. What actually happened when I got here was that I wasn’t able to meet any women, none! I thought I could maybe meet people out shopping or something, in a nice lounge bar, but it’s not like that here. Come to think about it, I don’t think it’s like that anywhere. When I was going out in Cleveland, I never picked up any women. I guess women don’t talk to you if they don’t know you or know of you, or someone that they know knows you. “I know I look good so it couldn’t be my looks.” (Ed O.G.) When Ed O.G. made that song “Gotta Have Money To Make It Witt The Ladies In The 90’s” He was telling the truth for the 90’s and beyond because it’s year 2000 and the same applies. If you don’t have a fly ride or are not a celebrity in New York and don’t know nobody, you are doomed.

I’m here trying to accomplish my dream of getting into Hip Hop, but with no women and no friends, it’s getting hard. I’ve talked to at least 100 girls in the last year, more than I’ve probably ever talked to in life, and didn’t strike anything with any of them. I talked to about 5 over the phone and nothing became of them. It’s ridiculous that there are millions of people walking around in this city and you can’t talk to anyone, at least not on a meeting and get to know on a relationship level. New York has some of the finest women of all races walking around, but you go and speak to them and it’s like “why are you saying something to me?” Even if you are polite, you still get dissed. Right now as I am writing this, I am depressed and don’t know what I am going to do. I don’t even like being outside in the city. I feel like it’s just me here and the rest of the outside world I’m seeing through a sound proof glass.

I went out last weekend with Burton who came to New York from Ohio. I talked to a really nice young lady by the name of Michelle at the Club Two Eyes We exchanged numbers and she gave me the wrong number. I talked to about four other girls that night and gave them my number and no one has called. Women here don’t give out their phone number like I can get to em’ and kill em’ through the phone. I told Michelle, if after calling a couple times and I see that you are not interested, I will not call anymore because I don’t have time for that. I told her I was a mature young man looking for a mature young lady, out of college or stable in her life. She told me she was in graduate school. I asked if we could get to know each other? She said yeah and we exchanged numbers. I called her Sunday night, and she gave me the wrong number. It just gets me down that I can introduce myself to a woman that I like, talk to her for a moment, and then she gives me the wrong number. I’m at the point now where I’m telling myself that I will not introduce myself to anymore women in this city.

I haven’t made any connections in the Hip Hop world neither. I ‘m kind of confused as to what type of Hip Hop I should be making. Underground artist such as Mos Def and Slum Village, who both have dope albums, they don’t sell. I want this music to be my living, and a good living. How am I supposed to live producing songs on albums that don’t sell to provide me with that living? The tracks being produced out on the mainstream, I don’t like half of them. I just try and make funky music. It must not be funky enough because out of like 25 tapes that I’ve submitted in person to rappers such as Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan, Talib Kweli of Black Starr and Reflection Eternal, and Rampage of the Flip Mode Squad, I have gotten no calls. I gave a tape to Black Rob’s brother and he gave me no call. I gave a tape to this kid named Poo Cabroxi, he called me and wanted two tracks on the tape. After I gave him the two tracks on a separate tape, he never called me again. He was telling me that I was gonna be recordin’ the songs in Daddy’s House Studios because his boy who wanted the songs was signed to Bad Boy Entertainment.

I sent a tape to my cousin who used to work for Motown. She is in Atlanta now. She didn’t respond. I cursed her out for not responding to me to tell me anything. She talked to me like she was some big A&R, not my cousin. She said since I cursed her out, she cannot help me. And she was working in the same office building as the Organized Noise producers who produced Outkast. She never introduced me to no one, so I said fuck her. I also know a guy who is down with DJ Clue. He is one of my good friend’s cousin by the name of Windexter. He was on the inside cover of Clue’s first mix tape on a major label. He grew up with Clue’s manager Richie. Every time I call this guy, he is never home. Or when I do talk to him, he never seems to have time to hang out, not even as a friend, which was my initial plan anyway because I thought he was a cool cat. I asked him to introduce me to Richie one time. He told me to call him one Saturday so he could listen to my tape, but he wasn’t home when I called. I even told him that if I get paid, I’d pay him, but he still hasn’t responded to me.

So I’m just here and I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do with my life. I’m not gonna quit yet. I’m just feeling really down. So what started out as a bud in 84/85 lead me here to New York City feeling kind of depressed in the year 2000. I expected the rejection in the music industry, but the rejection from these women, I didn’t expect, and I am not handling it so well. But hopefully with time things will get better. I feel I want this music Hip Hop dream so bad, that I’m willing to go through all this because anywhere else I’ll have nothing to chase but a corporate ladder, which I don’t feel like chasing right now. I have a feeling that chasing that ladder will probably take me further in life than this Hip Hop dream, but what can I say. I want Hip Hop to be my life, not accounting in a corporation and definitely not in an accounting firm. It’s providing me with a means to live, but it’s not in my heart, HIP HOP IS!