Protect Your Dreams

Michael A. Gonzales at 1:16 AM on 06/18/08:

…tricky played her boyfriend on “girlfriends.” i know, i know everything!

MML at 1:19 AM on 06/18/08:

s’all good, mike, i remember that too & i ain’t even watch ‘girlfriends’ like that.

Marcus at 8:49 PM on 06/18/08:

Dude, you just getting old(er) and learning to appreciate what you’ve accomplished and what you have. As much as we Niggerati types obsess over fame, fortune and, above all, making a little history, there comes a point when you have to realize, hey, we did it when set to do what da fuck we wanted to do, which is write for a living. Oh, and dude you also really sound like a Frenchy nigga….LOL. The cafe kind, sitting over your wine and scoffing at people with Zer petty Boozwazee lives…LOL. Rock on, man.

MML at 9:43 PM on 06/18/08:

hey marcus! your blog gets comments like a mug, yo. so yeah, we write for a living & that’s what we wanted, true. but didn’t you want a record label also, and to throw out a quickie album under some cryptic pseudonym, and become a hiphop spike lee too, freakin hitchcock-like cameos? diddy does like 6 different things (any of them well?), and that’s like another hallmark of our generation: overambition. whatever, i’m rambling… i GIVE THANKS.

but no thanks, i ain’t no wine-sipping café nigga. lol…

Marcus at 10:07 PM on 06/18/08:

LOL…Actually, I rapped—or returned to rap after giving it up in ’86—for one month period in 1997 or ’98, when my whole crew was nothing but rap dudes. Hey, busted a few good verses (at least that’s what the crew said) and moved on…right back to doing what I love: writin’ and pon-rifficatin’ on dumb shit. But your right, every body wants to be every damn thing instead just being great at one…Hey, while the dumb-asses search, leaves more room for us to do the real shit. Fame or not.

MML at 10:38 PM on 06/18/08:

i’m a classic sagittarius, B. i shoot my arrows in 12 different directions like the rest of december’s chillen (gordon parks, jigga, mos def, etc.). for better or worse…

Matt C. at 10:41 AM on 06/19/08:

Everyone right on here. It’s not just a black thing either, I tried to travel in the Poetry Slam scene and met all those people and gave Saul W. dap and sacrificed my late night beers for Carl Hancock Rux and all that, only to realize that a life of traveling and grinding just wasn’t going to work for me, due to less-than-commanding stage presence and my various day jobs. I still wonder if I could have / should have overcome my fundamental bourgeois nature and actually become great instead of just pretty good…but that’s for the 3 A.M. doubt file, and I don’t go there much anymore.

MML at 1:18 PM on 06/19/08:

hey matt. i suppose the rule of thumb for me is that there’s always a bigger fish. saul’s great, but people don’t know him like they know mos def. and mos is great, but people don’t know him like they know jay-z. and jay-z’s great, but… etc.

it’s most important to focus on self, be sure not to direct too much of your energy on other people, and do you to the fullest. but we all know that shit already.

theHotness Grrrl at 10:19 PM on 06/19/08:

Sh*t, it’s not everyday your friends get married period. Whether Persia is a “tv star” or not can be debated but either way she is an artist and more to the point she is one of the odd-ball “girlfriends” at that in the tradition of lisa bonet who really doesn’t fit into the network tv mold with her tatted vegan rock grrrl booty. She found Saul and he found her post tv show cancellation, post record label blues, etc. And what’s deep is that they got married in spite, err despite being over ambitious “1970, 1971” kin folk, trying to make somethin of themselves (in LA no less). Our generation got lost in the sauce for better or for worse (for better I say) and we are multitasking like a mug and reinventing ourselves and sometimes through it all, marriage or at least companionship can lose its luster next to that bottle of Cristal, next to that publishing deal, next to that recording contract. You know whut I’m sayin! I’m there too in the thick flux of it trying to find my way and my boo!!!:) So what I’m trying to say, look out for your Bronx sis and get me some French bro, you big ex-pat… LOL!

MML at 12:23 AM on 06/20/08:

hi nicole. well, no.1, ‘TV star’ isn’t a big deal coming from me, because i don’t watch TV, and c’mon: where are any of the ‘living single’ girls now? (except latifah, obviously.) but no.2, word, cats like us can hustle hustle hustle, and wake up at fortysomething having forgotten to, like, check our self-obsessed ambition long enough to get married and have it not be all about us for a while. trust, this husband/wife/parenthood thing is all about compromise & sacrifice, and the navel-gazing artist thing is never quite the same trip afterwards.

shawn taylor at 5:05 AM on 06/20/08:

i am actually enjoying my hustle-forward lifestyle. I’m married, I’m a father, and everything I do has to be in the service of those two life-facets. I write, give lectures, educate…but what it boils down to is that I want to be the best husband and father I can be, and my hustle/s are allowing for that. I want’t to touch on what Nicole said…my 6th anniversary is on July 6th—but we’ve been together for 9 years. We’ve been together longer than anyone we know. For some reason, most of my friends either choose not to get married or can’t sustain a relationship for more than a few months. What sucks is that the relationships that fail in the most spectacular of fashions always has at least one partner of African descent. Not sure why, but that’s how it plays out. Big ups to Saul and Persia for jumping that broom. Here’s to hoping that love will win out over dream pursuits.

Cherie B at 5:13 AM on 06/20/08:

You’re so dope!

Popular Thug at 11:52 AM on 06/20/08:

ahhh, what a depressing epiphany for so many folks. i just saw the indie flick “the promotion” yesterday chronicling the woes of corporate life. it’s actually a comedy, which actually makes the subject matter more bearable.

check it out.

rebecca

theHotness Grrrl at 8:49 PM on 06/20/08:

First of all what’s up with putting my government name on blast!:)

Secondly, to you and Shawn, God bless y’all for finding that someone (I personally think it’s easier for guys but that is a different discussion). I just think a lot of us with our degrees, our smarts, our ambitions got a lil too self-involved but I also think that that is changing and we are ushering in a season of partnership, marriage and families. We can look at pop culture (JayZ & Beyonce, Will Smith & Jada, Obama & Michelle) and we can also look right in our own backyards. I’m single, but oh so optimistic.

shawn Taylor at 4:14 AM on 06/21/08:

hg, we may have to battle over who has it harder (in regards to finding someone)…if you lived in the bay area of california, i’d see your point. moving from brooklyn to oakland…dudes are a wee bit different than i’m used to…so i know it must be mad hard for women to find partners out here. going to back to what you said about degrees, smarts, etc. it’s because of my education (and pursuit of knowledge) plus travel tempered me enough, made me ready, to find and be with someone. but where i’m at, people look at you like you have sars if one partner is black and the two of you are together (and monogamous) for more than a little bit. brief excerpt from my book:
My Much Better Half
My wife, Janet, and I are not supposed to be together this long; five years—and counting—married, plus a few more living in sin. This may not seem like such a long time, but black relationships are measured in extended time, especially for our generation. To all of our friends and associates, we’ve been together for almost fifty years. The black folks of my generation are on that immediate gratification shit. To invest in a relationship takes too much time, time that could be spent in the pursuit of other partners, with whom it will take less time to do…whatever. Personally, I blame modern black music. Damn near every song is about hitting it on the way home from the club or cheating. Very few of our musicians are talking about courtship. But I digress. Janet and I took our time and we’re still doing the damn thing. And people cannot stand it. We’re “that couple.” The couple that most people are sickened by due to our uncanny ability—and desire—to make it work. Most of our social circle detests the fact that we’re still making it happen. “You guys are always together,” they hurl at us. As if that were such a bad thing. But the sentiment has to be decoded along gender lines. When the guys say it, it should be translated as such: “Are you sure you want to sleep with the same woman for the rest of your life? I couldn’t do it.” The women’s subliminal commentary—most of whom have one to three kids hanging off them—is this: “I wish I had a man that stayed around. I have all these kids, and I’m doing this shit by myself. I hope they break up soon so that I have someone to be miserable with.” Is this a generalization? Sure, it is. But you’d be surprised what you hear when no one thinks you’re paying attention. Well, fuck em. We’re happy, but it’s not like it didn’t take a whole lot of work to get here.