[Lifestyles] For the sake of employment…

I wanted to share a story from when I was working a few years back… There was this young lady who was a supervisor and there was a major incident that was brought to my attention and needed to be dealt with since I was the senior supervisor in the office. I will let this be known now, that I was a complete asshole to most people in the office at the time because there was a lot of pressure on me to make sense of madness and like they say… Shit rolls downhill. So, most people caught a glimpse of my wrath when I was not pleased for whatever reason. Hell I am surprised how many people talked to me after the job was over. I was in my office space, when she approached me. I asked her to sit and began to talk about what happen. Without giving out details, she had messed up and as I was scolding her about her responsibilities especially since she was a supervisor. Yes, my words were harsh, but if it came from anyone else it would’ve been her job. As I spoke, she began to tear up and I could see she was trying really hard not to cry.

I stopped. I was not happy at all by this. I told her the following:

I know you’re not about to cry. Go into the bathroom and clean yourself up and we will talk more. You can show these weak emotions to those who are your superior because it makes you seem unstable and unable to do your job. You’re not being fired, but don’t put doubt in my mind. Do you want that? ::she shook her head:: Then go…

With that being said, she got up went to the bathroom and came back. Yeah it could’ve been a big argument or she could’ve gone and filed a complaint against me, but I just told her the truth. If you are perceived as an ineffective person at a job, you are replaceable. I kept her from getting fired and even help her move into other positions that was beneficial to her. The truth is that this day and age is tough. Jobs are slowly coming back and there are mobs (me being one of them) trying to make a strong enough impression so that people in power can say “I want him”. When you’re a person of color, there is 10 times the pressure to be stronger, wiser, tougher, smarter than our counterparts. If you’re not, then you have to settle for whatever minimum wage job out there that can’t even pay the rent. Throughout my adult life I’ve held different types of employment (sadly, this is the longest stretch of employment that I have encountered). From retail to office positions and the politics are the same everywhere you go.

The one thing I learned from that job was that sometimes there are asshole out there (me being one of them) that can make your job the living hell. From the customers who complain for the sake of complaining to the dumbass placed in management positions. No one is going to care about you if you can’t produce. What you need to focus on is if you are willing to accept the way things are or risk go on to greener pastures. A risk that could bring you less headache or finical uncertainty… Think about it for a second, what are you willing to put up with for the sake of employment?

Kenny.

[Lifestyles] Grade Pending

Listen close and you will hear a story of great woe. Just like the fairy tales of old, this tale begins with the phrase used so many times before with once upon a time in a little place called Canarise Brooklyn. It was a quiet night in which a BOY traveled to and fro in search of a great meal. With his stomach growling he entered a place called Fortune Cookies Chinese Restaurant. As the BOY entered the tiny little shop, he did not notice the NYC Health Department “Grade Pending” sign in front, because if he did it would have warned him of the troubles to come. The BOY gave the female shop keeper his order of lo mein with fried chicken and started to count the minutes before he can quench his hunger. As he sat and waited, one of the workers came into view. He was very slobbish, covered in dirt, grease and grime. Like clouds in the sky, the BOY could see patterns form on the workers apron. The BOY shuddered a bit. The worker placed a mop in his hand to the side so he could close a trash bag overflowing with rubbish. It was quite a difficult task. He took his bare hands to push everything inside so he could be able to seal the black bag. Once finished, he pulled the bag out and dragged it into the street for the garbage men to come pick it up in the wee hours of the morning. Once he returned, he entered the kitchen, dipped his hands in the container of lo mein noodles and threw it into a wok. The BOY gasped at this sight. The man, who he just seen taking his bare hands pushing down garbage, was now, cooking his meal without washing his hand. Sicken to the core, the BOY fled in hopes to never return, but he had realized one thing too late. He had eaten from this same place several times before…

The moral, if you can call it that is…

DO NOT FUCKING EAT AT FORTUNE COOKIE CHINESE RESTAURANT LOCATED AT 9004 AVEUNE B IN BROOKLYN, N.Y.!!!

Of course there is more to this story. A while back, I wrote a blog called: B is for Failure, in which I talked about a Subways restaurant on my block that had a B-rating from the Health department. After seeing that rating, I went on the health department’s website and did my own little research about other places in my neighborhood. Many places had sever violations and it made me really wonder had these places can get away with this. In this little adventure, I did my research once again on the placed named above and was shocked to what I had discovered and the loop holes used so that the public is not aware of this travesty. On the NYC health department website you can find out how they score and grade plus there latest and previous inspections. It’s quite simple really. The age of technology is just a wonderful beast at times.

When you are on the website, you can either enter in the eatery’s name you want to find or the zip code, which in this case 11236, and it will pull up the place or all the restaurants within that area. After filtering based on cuisine type (American, Bakery, Caribbean, Chinese, etc…), I found Fortune Cookies had a “Not Yet Graded” as their current grade (When I first did the search it was actually a C grade, but it has since changed). While going through the inspections on the left side of the screen of their most recent I disgusted by what I saw. To put things in perspective here is the how the health department score violations…

From the “How we score and Grade” PDF:

The points for a particular violation depend on the health risk it poses to the public. Violations fall into three categories:

A public health hazard, such as failing to keep food at the right temperature, triggers a minimum of 7 points. If the violation can’t be corrected before the inspection ends, the Health Department may close the restaurant until it’s fixed.

A critical violation, for example, serving raw food such as a salad without properly washing it first, carries a minimum of 5 points.

A general violation, such as not properly sanitizing cooking utensils, receives at least 2 points.

 

In September of last year, Fortune Cookie was graded 3 times. Once on the 10^th which added up to 62 violation points, the next on the 13^th which added up to 32 points and lastly on the 14^th with only 3 points. Lucky for the public you can actually see what they were violated for. This is a screen shot of the September 10^th list violations:

Click on image to expand size.

Personal cleanliness… does that creep anyone else out like it did me? I have to assume as a person looking at this, that it only received a 3 in there last inspection because of the city threatening to shut them down and they hired a crew of elves to come in and do there magic… maybe one of those Sookie Stackhouse fairies as well perhaps.

I began to wonder why in the hell did this place have a “Grade Pending” on its store front window when it clearly wasn’t making the grade at all. Everything was kind of confusing until I reread the PDF document. There is a part that I want to make EVERYONE aware of. Towards the bottom of the first page and the top of the second there is this:

“A restaurant has two chances to earn an A in every inspection cycle. If it doesn’t earn an A on the first inspection, it’s scored but ungraded. An inspector goes back to the restaurant unannounced, typically within a month, to inspect it again and the re-inspection is graded. If the grade is a B or C, the restaurant will receive a grade card and a grade pending card. It can post either card until it has an opportunity to be heard at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings Health Tribunal. 

Until a restaurant has a graded inspection, it is listed as Not Yet Graded on the Health

Department website”

I underlined the most important part. A place can either post the grade they had received OR a Grade Pending sign. Establishments, unless they are shut down, can hide their score from the public!!! Ain’t that some shit right there… I was ready to let Facebook, Foursquare, Google and anyone that could hear me from my soapbox about this place. That’s another reason to love the technology age. I started to comb the internet for some reviews and frankly there were very few expect for this one Yelps. Here is the screenshot:

Click on image to expand size.

A disclaimer though… While the place reviewed was actual ANOTHER Fortune Cookies restaurant in Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights area, the review mentioned a place called Chopsticks which is right down block and provides a better service than Fortune Cookie, so I knew that she might’ve made a mistake in placing the review there. I also felt that the first review was also talking about the Fortune Cookies restaurant as well, but I am not 100% sure about that.

After being sick for months and unable to stomach even the sight of food. It is disappointing that places like this exist and even shameful that people pack them without doing any research. A few minutes can avoid hours of throwing up or much worse. I suggest that everyone out there takes a moment (especially if you live in the New York area) to review some of the fast food places that you go into everyday. What you might learn may surprise you and save your life.

Kenny.

[Lifestyles] Celebrities and Porn: A Love Story.

Sam Jones III. Ever heard of the guy? If you ever watched the first couple of seasons of Smallville you might have. He played the only recurring African-American character on the show until he was written off. You might know him from another show. He also played the gay little brother to Mekhi Phifer character Greg Pratt in the acclaimed series ER. He has spent 10 years of his life in front of the camera in other small roles and I didn’t know who this man was until I looked at his Wikipedia page.  So you might be asking yourself, why am I bringing this up now? Well… I stumbled on to something interesting about the man, you see he has something in common with the likes of Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and other wealthy D-List celebrities out there. He has a sex tape. In 2009, while I was dealing with my own personal issues, he was out there pushing a sex tape with himself and his girlfriend, one of Hugh Heffner’s ex girlfriends. Now it’s his life and what he does with his life is his business at the end of the day, but can I ask a question? When did having sex in front of a camera guarantee you a career in mainstream media? Or why are celebrities embarking in this route in keeping their names in the limelight? 10 years ago, if you were not in the porn industry where you are paid to have sex, having your private moments exposed for the world to see was an embarrassment. Now, people build careers off of them without remorse.

Now, I have seen Porn movies that attempt to merge acting and graphic sex. Some are successful like that “NOT” series of videos (i.e. “Not The Office”, “Not 3’s Company”, “Not The Cosby Show”, or “Not Good Times”), while others tend to leave me wanting to jab Q-Tips into my ears to spare myself the pain of hearing annoying dialogue. Like come on, how many times are you going to look into the cupboard and “inspect” something? Just please bend over so we can get this show on the road for pete sake. Maybe it’s just my impatient personality kicking in. I really don’t want to come off holier than thou on this, because I have no problem watching any of these videos. None at all… But it kills me when I see people who have no real talent, being famous for what they have done laying down with their feet up! Let’s keep it real, would American really care about Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton if they weren’t seen deep throating a penis? Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder…

Kenny.

[Stupidity is NOT a Legal Defense] Faking Jacks

I don’t get it.

Anytime I see a photo with displaying a whole lot of money, I am thinking of an IRA, rent, paid bills, a down payment for a house, car, investment property… not this fuckery here.

 I really do not understand why people go out of there way and post photos of themselves with loads of money around them when they should know better. I posted a blog about this before called Flashing Jackson (back then, I think my words were a bit harsher) where I talked about this foolishness, but it keeps happening. In the age of the internet am I the only one who sees logic and common sense rapidly leaving our society? Even worse are the photos with wads of money on top of infant children. Now where are child protection services when you really need them, huh? The fact is money is dirty and can carry germs. Germs that can damage a maturing immune system. But you have these dummies that go out of their way to not only take these picture, but POST them where other idiots try and follow suit. Oh and let’s not even talk about the traces of drugs that still linger on the bills out there in circulation. Someone could’ve had that 20 up their nose sniffing coke or meth 24 hours before you touched it and here you go with it all over you. Really…  There are other things that are worse than the money photos and  that is of course the epidemic of sex-ting nude photos, which fucks up the lives of teens and high power adults, but that is another blog in the making.

I think as technology and all the things you can with it advances, stupidity increases as well. Let’s be real, it’s not new for someone to get in trouble for what they post online because the internet is funny place. You might think uploading that photo of yourself chopping down on a burger of $100 dollar bills is cute, but you never know WHO is looking at these photos. It could be that perspective boss you just interviewed with for that dream job. It could be law enforcement breezing through profiles and wondering why you’re unemployed (or listed yourself AS unemployed), but got all that money around you. Am I the only one watching the news stories about people being locked up for what photos and videos that they post? But most likely it is someone with ill intent seeing what you have and plotting to take it from you by any means necessary.

Seriously, people need to stop and think like a serial killer every once in awhile just for the sake of prevention. So I am looking for people to explain to why people do suck foolishness. Any takers?

Kenny.

[Lifestyles] Fatherhood

So Father’s Day was yesterday. Big Deal… If you haven’t guess by now, I am not a fan of the day, but there are many reason why. Besides the fact that my own father is a fucktard, I see this day and others like it as a way for the greeting card companies to make a buck. Seriously, what is the main point of the day? One day out the year people tend to make a spectacle of themselves running out to get that must have gift for dear ole dad to show him how much you care. I figure, if you are being a good father, then you do not need a day where people tell you that. In fact, when you take the role of a parent it is your duty to make sure that the next generation is better than your own. My generation was great, but yours will be spectacular… What happen to that mindset?

I am not going to knock others for doing what they do because of the tradition, but I hope other people feel where I am coming from. As the role of Fathers has changed throughout the generations, there are men stepping up to the plate and there are men slithering out of sight to avoid any responsibility, but that is not new. I have wondered about the state of “Black Fatherhood” in this country and how it impacts the next generation. There can be several lengthily debates surrounding this. Some things I would agree with while other ideas I believe to have as much accountability as a pound of horse shit. Over the years, I’ve seen the good men work there asses off in being a good father, teaching their children to be grown adults and doing what they have to do in supporting their family and better society. On the other side of the card, I have seen and experienced for myself men who chose not to do anything for the lives they produce. What you hear the most about is the latter and I hear the complaints roaring. When I hear guys complain about paying child support or about their Baby mama drama, I cringe a bit. Child support is there to benefits the well being of a child. Even if you’re not in your child’s life you are obligated to make sure that you seed eats, has a roof over it’s head and is able to live a healthy existence until the age of maturity. Yes the cost of living is going up while the living wage in most states is either at a standstill or going down, but that is no one’s problem but your own since no one told you to splash off without protection into someone and creating your own problem. The system is there for everyone to use. For example, if you feel that the woman you have a child with is misusing the funds that you are sending or that is being subtracted from your paycheck, you can go to court and either get joint or primary custody. Of course it is not as simple as I had stated there is a lot of work that is involved, but there are measures in place that can be utilized. While it gets on my nerves when men complain about the subject, it equally gets on my nerves when women get on their soap box and preach about dead beat dads. Get it together…  just like I would say so any man about their baby mama, keep in mind that YOU CHOSE TO LAY DOWN WITH THE MAN, do not get mad when you realized too late that he wasn’t worth shit.

I know there are going to be a few people out there who will assume I am a touch bitter. Perhaps, I might be. I guess as I age, I hope to see a different view of everything…

Kenny.

[My Life] Sum of all things…

Some people think I am: Rude, Disrespectful, Nasty, Cruel, Mean spirited, Emotionally unbalanced, Cold hearted, Weak, Violent, Depressing, A drunk, A prude, Insensitive, Vengeful, Harsh, Prideful, Conceited, Cocky, and a loser. While others think I am: Loving, Head strong, Passionate, Life of the party, Truthful, Shy, Kind, Quiet, Leader, A winner, Hard worker, Funny, Sincere, Loyal, Reliable and a good listener.

I feel I am the sum of all the things that others believe I am to be. Now you might wonder why I would believe this… Well, because at one point in time I gave them a reason to believe it to be so. While talking to a friend the other night, the topic was discussed about how I was not always the nicest person to the people around me when I was working as a supervisor. In fact I was downright nasty, rude and known throughout the office to blow up at people without a second thought. I had made people cry, nervous and a few other things, but at the time I didn’t care. I was so stressed by the amount of problems going on around me, from office politics, office romances and conspiracies that I was trying to (a) keep my job by making sure people were doing what they needed to do without me on their backs and (b) identify the people who were trying to get me to lose my job and get them let go. Let’s just say that every day was an uphill battle and the only thing that kept me going was my paycheck each week. While I might’ve been this villainous person to most people, there were a few people who I would hang out with afterhours who knew I was nothing like what the people in the office thought I was. Yeah, It’s hard to get others to overlook their first impressions of you, especially in a work environment, but when it is all said and done you can make really great and long lasting friendships.

Even though I said earlier in the blog that I feel like I am the sum of all things… I know what others think do not determine how I feel about myself. Yeah, I know I am not the nicest person in the world and can get a little extra sometimes with my anger, but I can be that friend or that shoulder to cry on when there is no one around. When I awake in the morning and look at that mirror, the only person that I need to worry about liking me… is me! I find that there are those in our society that have a hard time seeing this way. Far too many let others dictate who they are in life, instead of just BEING who they are and letting the chips fall where they may. Not everyone is going to like me… Too bad, so sad… and I damn sure don’t like most people. In my 30 years, I’ve learned that life can get so complicated with bullshit that it makes you forget that time is so short and you have to enjoy life before it is taken away.

Kenny.

[Lifestyles] Thank You for Stalking

I was walking home from the Western Beef on Monday, the time of course escaped me and it was earlier than I thought it was. As I was passing the Family Dollar, I thought it was a good idea to finally pick up something that I had been looking for which was Milk of Magnesia. I wanted it for 2 reasons; I’ve been having problems with my stomach for the last few months and I heard that using Milk of Magnesia can help clear up complexion problems like blackheads.

This Family Dollar had gone through a metamorphic change last year when it went from a crappy rundown little hole in the ground to a stylish brand new crappy hole in the ground with a freezer that doesn’t smell like dead rats. I’ve shopped there many times, ever since it was one of the first stores that opened up 10 years ago when the neighborhood started going through an urban renewal that transformed the old abandoned sanitation garages underneath the 3 line train track into ugly furniture and franchise stores. When I entered the store, it was almost a ghost town, with probably 2 or 3 customers wondering around. I scanned the store to see where the healthcare or bath products were located which was in the front of the store, isolated in its own U shaped area. While I was looking through the shelves, I noticed this little African man started buzzing around. I turned my head towards him and he suddenly started to “face” (To “face” is to straighten out the products on the shelves, place them correctly under/above the tags and remove what doesn’t belong) one of the shelves. That’s odd, I thought. With spider sense tingling, I went up to him because I needed to make him useful.

“Do you have any Milk of Magnesia?” I asked.

“Um… um, no… um, we sold out of it” he replied with this deer caught in the headlights expression.

“Okay, do you have anything similar?” I asked not letting up.

“Um… I don’t think so…”

He walked me over to the same area that I just left and pointed to an empty shelf, exclaiming that there was nothing available. However just below that empty shelf were bottles of Milk of Magnesia, so I pointed to products and asked: “What is that?” His facial expression was priceless. I picked up the bottle and walked away from him without another word. As I went around the store, picking up knick knacks here and there I noticed that the he would still wonder around. By the time I finished shopping the little African man was behind the counter with another employee figuring out facebook mobile. As the other employee rang me up, the African man asked me if I found everything I was looking for. I ignored him, thanked the lady for my changed and walked out of the store.

Shopping while black is nothing new to me. When I was a teenager going to school in lower Manhattan, I would shop at some of the stores in the area and I always got the feeling that someone was watching me. At a grocery store on East 14^th street (I don’t remember the name since they long went out of business), I went to buy something to snack on and was detained by security. Of course they let me go, but I was so embarrassed that this man pulled me out of line and asked me to remove everything out of my pockets. I swore to myself that I would never go to that store again, no matter what and I kept true to my word on that.

Recently, when I went to Trader Joe’s in the city, looking to see if they might have certain herbs and spices that I can’t seem to find in the stores in my area. I went into my bag to get out my notebook that contained the shopping list when out of the blue one of the workers came up to me and asked me if I needed help. At first I thought that was really nice, I politely told him no and that I was okay and continued looking for stuff. About 2 minutes later another employee proceeded to do the same thing. I was in the middle of a crowded aisle with people gleefully snatching stuff off the shelves at a staggering pace (They have a lot of good healthy stuff there I recommend people check the place out) and this employee seemed to come directly to me and no one else. After the 3^rd time, I felt like I was being singled out. I started to notice a security guard walking around me. Now there was a very diverse clientele shopping around there, but every time I moved around there was a security guard standing to the right or left of me or an employee smiling in my face asking me if I needed something.

Was it just paranoia? Probably. Was I being stalked? Who knows. I put everything back where I found them and walked out the store.

Kenny.

[Lifestyle] The Ides of March.

Have you ever heard of the saying: Beware the Ides of March?

It stems back to when Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 B.C. on the Senate floor by his friend and many enemies. I remember hearing that saying when I was a teenager in my high school Latin class. The teacher explained that the phrase meant you have to be careful with the company you keep because not everyone has good intentions. Today, that should reign true more then ever.

At every given moment some one is betrayed by some one they know and/or love. It could be an affair, revealing personal information to a third party or some kind of action that removes the trust two people have for another. So how do you deal? In the movies, we either see a happy ending or no real ending at all. On television, there is a conflict and within the next 20 minutes there is some kind of resolution and the preview for the next week show comes on where everyone is skipping into the sunset. Rarely do we see the process that goes into repairing the consequence of a betrayal. We see the thought, the action, but never really the detail that goes into repairing the tears created. What do you do? How do you forgive? Can you move on? They’re mindless questions that have a true purpose.

In my life, I always have my guard up when dealing with people. Well… I shouldn’t say always, because there have been times that I allowed someone in. It only takes one time for me to realize that I can’t trust a person or that person is not looking out for anyone but themselves and will not mind selling out others in the drop of a hat. I only put myself out there one time and in that one time, I foolishly did not listen to that part my brain screaming DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! I thought it was going to be much different experience then it was, but in the end I was left broken emotionally. A part of my soul died, because every time I look back and see the events unfolding I want to crawl into a corner and mourn. In my 30 years, I have learned that there is really no instruction manual when it comes to life, we deal with things as they come and hope for the best. But what if the best doesn’t come and you’re left wondering why your heart is on the ground torn into pieces...

Kenny.

[My Life] Keywords

So apparently you can find my blog if you are looking for a sex party with trannies.

SoYeah… Go Team Venture!…

I’ve been taking my blog seriously for the last few months since I’ve been unemployed. It gives me a chance to develop some kind of income while trying to tune up my writing skills. Plus it is a way for me to return to how I was before 2009, when I would post blogs once or even more a day. Flash forward to this morning. While going through some of the stats of my blog on blogger, there is a section where you can view what keywords that people type into the search engine for your site to come up.

As you can see from the photo the phrase: “3 train sutter and rutland sex group ceo” appears. Now, imagine my surprise when those words came up on that list. I am looking at the screen thinking where the hell they do that at. I know that I never posted anything about a sex party or orgy, but I have posted a few blogs about my area and my train stop Sutter Ave./Rutland Rd., maybe just maybe that was what was being picked up. So I highlighted the words, opened a new tab in Google Chrome and proceeded to do a Google search. The very first link that popped up was the twitter account of a female by the screen name “Mssexibooty19” promoting a sex party. WOW… So, this just got very interesting. It wasn’t like I wanted the information to go, but it was weird learning of one in my area. After clicking the link, the photo of a “hood girl” came up, with a number of troll like tweets on her profile to different people about her parties and sex video tapping. I checked out her AOL Lifestream photos where this “hood girl” was pleasuring someone orally and another one where she is once again giving some one lip service while another man was behind her getting his jollies. I don’t know why people are so eager to put their very private moments on the internet for the entire world to see and something that could come back to haunt their future… but hey more power to them since it’s not me. Sadly, I know a few young girls and grown women who are trying to make their way into the porn business for different reasons and join these bottom of the barrel companies or they proceed to do things for themselves and make home video and upload them to websites like Xtube. At first I was thinking she is just trying to be the next Pinky or something like that, but from beneath the ground up. The last photo I check out was of the “hood girl” posing on what I thought was the same roof the other photos were taken on, but looking at the “hood girl” close up, I realize that she was actually a transsexual. Another surprise… I closed the tabs and went through the “O” in Google search to see where my blog came in to this travesty. After going through 15 of the “O”’s in Google I could not find anything. I scratched my head and checked out the other keywords that came up on the blogger stat tracker list and my website would come up on the first or second page.

So I am sitting here confused and wondering… How did my blog ever get connected to a listing containing this? I guess I will never know and to be honest… a part of me really doesn’t WANT to know.

Kenny.

[A More Perfect Union] Crash

One of my favorite movies is CRASH. From the writing, the actors that portrayed the diverse characters and how each of those characters interact with each other in such a hostile environment to the symbolism of what each person represents. While we move around crashing into each other’s live, how many times have we take stock in what we are crashing into. The main reason I love the movie is because it is relatable when it comes to the topic of race. The reality is every person has some sort of racial prejudice inside of them. They might not want to admit it, but it’s there. Only when we acknowledge it can it be address and we as a society can move forward.

Late this summer, I linked up with a two of my friends Andre* and Jake* so we could go to this bar called the Iron Horse down by the South Street Seaport in the city. It’s a cool place with a very chilled atmosphere and mixed ethnic crowd. Now my friends were celebrating their last day at our job and I was along for the ride. We were basically getting nice and tight. Drinks were flowing, the mood was right and the bartender, a young curvy Asian woman was on the bar swing giving everyone a show while pouring drinks in some of the patrons mouths. Try to picture a coyote ugly theme… and yeah there was a school yard like swing on the bar. So it’s about midnight or so. I was maybe on my second rum and coke, while Andre and Jake were spinning the shots wheel and shooting down whatever the little peg stopped at. Even though I secretly wanted to do the shots wheel as well, I thought it would be best if I didn’t go over board since I had to be at work later that day. I have to admit, we were an odd trio. Andre is Puerto Rican, three apples high, skinny and unapologetically gay. Jake, also three apples high, African American, straight, very mild mannered and cock diesel. He is the type of guy where you might think he is not going to do nothing in a fight until all of a sudden he body slams 3 dudes at once.

Between midnight and 1am, Andre and I went out outside to smoke a cigarette and get some cool air. While I was sitting on the cement fence next to the front door, Andre was very drunk venting about all the pent-up feelings he had, when his OCD kicked in and plucked a lint ball from on top of my head. Right in front of us was this guy who laughed. By looking at him, he was short about 5’8 and you can say he was maybe in his early - mid 30’s, chubby the nerdy black rimmed glasses. He wasn’t African-American, Caucasian or Latino. My first thought was he could be Middle Eastern, but I didn’t want to jump to any real conclusion. Andre asked him what was so funny in a polite way and he mumbled an answer. An answer that I thought I heard, but no… I thought it had to be a mistake in what he said. So I asked him to repeat himself and he said the said the same thing. “You two look like Gorillas in the mist” That second time he said the remark snapped me out of my good mood. I thought of all the world horrors happening to him and him alone after I snapped his the jaw in half. I stood up, towering over him with my fist clenched. Gave him a dirty look and walked off, because knowing myself I would’ve made things worse if I had stayed. At first Andre didn’t understand what was going on, he followed me down the block asking if I was okay and I told him that I was good and just needed a moment to calm down. Before I could finish my cigarette, the man came towards me apologies asking if we were cool. I told him yeah, but he needed to get away from me. In that moment I was the bigger person… well in maturity that is. He walked off back to the front of the bar where Andre was and moments later I followed suit.

At this point, Andre and this man started to go out it. Trading barbs and insults with each statement escalating the emotions between the two. Andre face was turning red, hell his whole chest was turning red… Did I mention he was shirtless? …because that’s kind of important, but a whole other story which will remain untold on this blog. The man showed that didn’t understand what he said was wrong and instead of thinking before he spoke to us or accepting the fact that what he said was entirely wrong, he wanted to try and prove a point and be a complete ASS! As the man started to defend his comment to us, I really, really wanted to hit the dude, however my main focus was making sure no one (especially my friends) got into trouble, starting a fight or ending up doing something extremely stupid and be thrown in jail, so I grab Andre and dragged him inside.

While the night continued, things cooled down. Andre was for all intensive purposes GONE in drunken joy, Jake was enjoying the view of the female bartenders and I was trying to let the earlier event go, but I could feel the man’s eyes on me every now and then. At the bar, I ordered my 4^th rum and coke and I looked around for Andre, wondering where this little Puerto Rican went. You know when you get that nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach? I started to get that feeling and headed to the front of the bar where I could see the man and Andre once again getting into a heated argument. I rushed outside and stood in between them. If this dude took a swing I wanted to make sure that I protected Andre since he was smaller than the guy and weighed less, but I didn’t know then like I know now that he could take care of it himself. I tried to maneuver him away, which was difficult because his drunken state made him quite squirrely.

Less than 10 minutes after getting back into the bar for the second time, I was sitting with Jake at a table next to the jukebox telling him what happen outside while Andre was dancing/grinding on some woman at the end of the bar (A whole other story as well), when suddenly the man came up to us extending his hand trying to be friends. Jake gave me this look. “Is that the dude?” He asked. I nodded. The man looked at Jake and kind of froze up. Remember, when I said Jake was diesel? Yeah… I don’t think the man realize how big Jake was until he approached us.

This had become the last straw to me and I really didn’t care at this point about hurting feelings. I told him to: Just fucking leave me alone before I get really upset. He held his hands up as if to give up and walked away. Thankfully that was the last time I had seen him. After that night I became good friends with Andre and Jake and even though we are all leading separate happy lives, we meet up now and then and enjoy the time. While last year taught me a few lessons, the most important one being that even someone I might have the MOST in common with (from career goals to social surroundings) can try and will, stab you in the back or try to sabotage everything you are trying to do, I learned that we are all crashing into each other for a reason. Sometimes that reason is unclear to us at first… Many times people and I am including myself, do not recognize how important the every event is to us, since it defines who we are and what we stand for. Now, I don’t believe the man was a racist all, but maybe his lightly intoxicated state allowed certain thoughts to project from his inner being. I was glad that I used better judgment in dealing with the situation and it taught me that when confronted, even with a clouded mind, I can avoid the urge to strike and go down to there level.

*The names were changed to protect their own individual identity

Kenny.

[Lifestyles] They live among us

A couple of years ago, after I retrieved the mail from the mailboxes from the lobby of my apartment building, I waited by the elevator which seemed to take forever to come. As I waited there, my neighbors, a mother and daughter, who I rode down with were chatting about something that I wasn’t paying any attention too. When the elevator door finally opened I held the door for them. They said “thank you” and smiled. The truth of the matter is I didn’t like this pair at all. They’re both glorified baby sitters, making their general incomes by watching children from around the neighborhood, which I have no idea why anyone would leave there child with them. The daughter has 3 children of her own with the youngest by this crip gang member I used to be friends as a child. Now, we barely speak except for greetings, but I could care less for that. Every now and then, I would watch as the dysfunctions of their family would play out for the whole building to see. The mother screaming at her grandchildren, throwing them out of the house and locking them out for hours in their underwear so they would have to sit on the cold stairs and use the incinerator as a bathroom, hitting them with belt or whatever she could get her hands on. The daughter, the children’s mother, was no better as she was always in the hallway with her “boyfriend” the crip, smoking blunts (which I caught her kids doing as well) or getting into fights with her daughter that were sometimes physical. When I called the cops on them once after seeing the mother hit her grandson with a 2 by 4, my grandmother scolded me harshly about minding my own business. She didn’t want any problems especially from “those people” as she so loving put it. So just like everyone else in the building, I pretended to not see what was going on.

As the second door to the elevator was about to close, it suddenly stops and retreats back as the first door opened and a man, who only moved into the building a short while before, steps in. He greets everyone with a hello along with a smile and pressed his floor number. The condense space was suddenly became extremely quiet. No one seems to move or even breathe as we rumbling passed each floor. When we reached his floor, which was before ours, he turned to us and said “Have a good day”. After the man exited the elevator, the mother turned to her daughter and asked: “Who dat?” in a heavy island accent. “I don’t know” the daughter replied. “All that’s left in this building are strangers… Strangers and faggots” They both started laughing over there stupidity, with the daughter looking in my direction to join them. I said nothing, waited for the door to open and left them. As I was unlocking my door, I could still hear them laughing and I thought to myself that it was strange how they would condemn others or make fun of people with a family they have.

However, they were right about one thing. The apartment building had become a place full of strangers. After the new landlord took over my building, a lot of things changed. People who had lived there for decades like my family were moving out, the rents were being raised to dramatic amounts and different kinds of people were moving in. I underlined and bolded the word “kinds” for a reason. Since the previous years I had worked in real estate, I could spot people who were a part of a certain program to get their apartments. Either you were receiving section 8, part of homeless shelter program or a member of a HIV/AIDS housing program. Since rent payments come straight from agencies, many landlords would take applicants because those were guaranteed payments. Suddenly there were crack heads and overtly gay men running around the building, much to the dismay of some of the residents. When my mother and I, had to clear up a mistake on their part concerning the rent (They said we were missing payments, but we had the receipts that proved that the money order was not only given to them, but cashed as well), one of the men in the office told us they were going to the building so much better. So what happen next? They fired the superintendent who ran the building like a tight ship. He would not allow people to smoke in the hallways, made sure that repairs were taken care of and confronted people who he knew did not live in the building. He was like this evil Puerto Rican watchdog that never let up. Within a year after he was dismissed, a disable elderly man was robbed, shot and killed in his apartment. Gang graffiti started to be placed on the walls though out the floors followed by all night parties in the hallways. The mailboxes in the lobby were broken into several times especially around the first of the month. A veteran was jumped and robbed, then had his apartment broken into several times. The “new” super, wasn’t new but actually managed the building the next door, another property acquired by the landlord, refuse to deal with the problems going on in my building. Heat was a rare during the winter months with complaints falling on deaf ears. The last time my grandmother had left the house by herself, a man she didn’t know tried to touch her. I don’t know what would’ve happen if it was for a neighbor who knew her and helped her in the building. When I asked her who this guy was she refused to tell me, but never went outside without my mother or me next to her. A drug dealer moved in next door which brought police pounding on our door by mistake one Sunday morning. Finally in 2008, someone shot and dumped a man’s body behind my building. The news story about his death contained only 88 words and gave incorrect info, but that was it. Nothing was ever resolved. As this urban renewal around my block started bring in new stores like Raidoshack, Dollar Deals, Family Dollar, Pay Half, etc. the people in this neighborhood are not embracing the changes but wallowing in self misery.

Awhile back I wrote a blog called {Welcome to the Neighborhood... NOW GET OUT!}, I talked about the drug dealers that moved next door to me and the sexual predators around the neighborhood, but I have another little story to share about this guy… since I do not remember his name; I am going to call him Frank. Frank moved into the building shortly after the new landlords took over, with his pregnant daughter and son-in-law. There were quiet, kept to themselves and made movements only at night. When I was around them, I always got this feeling that something was not quite right with them. I thought his daughter had the deadest eyes, like she was walking around but no one was home. I would see Frank every now and then over the years, but shared no words with him. Last year, when I would come home at crazy hours of the night from work, I would stop at the “L” (The shopping district around the elevated train station) to get dinner before I headed home to crash. Walking home, I would see Frank panhandling in front of the McDonalds. The first time I saw that, I didn’t pay it any attention, but after seeing it a dozen or so times where he even asked ME for change, I knew something was fishy. I would wonder how can he afford to live in the apartment building if he is out here panhandling when new apartments go for a thousand dollars a month.

Towards the end of last year around late summer/early fall, I was walking into my building, tired from work. Like second nature, I went to check the mailbox the moment I went pass the foyer and there was Frank standing there in the lobby with 2 other men I had never seen before. One guy was tall and lanky with a beer bottle in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. The other guy was short wearing basketball shorts, a wife beater and had a number of tattoos, one being a Puerto Rican flag on his neck. The 3 men stood around, nervously pacing when another guy came into the lobby. Frank took him to the side and the two other men just stood there talking to one another. I had my headphones on blaring music and wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. As I waited for the elevator, another tenant approached and as I opened the elevator door for everyone, when Frank and the short guy refused to go in. The tall guy looked at them and shook his head in disgust. In the elevator, the tall guy went off about Frank. “Fucking crackheads” he started. “Talking shit, how they trying to be dealers when they smoke up everything.”

DING! DING! DING!

The red flags were going off like crazy. Frank was crackhead. Even though I didn’t care about it, everything started to make sense. As the taller guy started to really go in about Frank and his life, I kept thinking to myself that this was more information that I wanted to know. Everything done in the dark comes to light. Behind every door in this apartment building holds secrets that no one want other to know. Over the last two months, 5 people moved from the apartments on my floor. The landlord sent crews to pretty them up, but I have a feeling that they is just going to move more and more people like Frank into the building. Shuffling more and more of the destructive bottom 10 percent of our society from place to place who brings nothing good to the lives of others.

Oh and by the way, I don’t know if it matters or not, but Frank is white.

Kenny.

[Lifestyles] Happy Venereal Disease Day!

So today is another Valentine’s Day and I wanted take a moment to give a Valentine Day shout out to all the men out there who are spending the day, masturbating to busty Asian blonds, while others break their backs to impress the one they love. Yeah, as you can guess, I am not a fan of the day. Even when I was in a committed relationship, I made it known not to expect anything from me on this day because I always thought it was stupid to deplete my bank account and destroy my patience just for a pretty smile and 15 minutes of guaranteed sex. Doing special things for the one you love should come every day, sometimes even twice a day, but not on some manmade holiday that is just a gimmick for the greeting card monopoly.

I am going to leave those out there with some damaged pearls of wisdom. If you are going to indulge in your dollies tonight, remember VD also stands for Venereal Disease and it doesn’t take a holiday. Load up on the condoms, KY gel (Eros or Astroglide are much better) and tear the town or your friend for the night… apart. It is not going to be very special when you wake up with the hero ability to pee fire tomorrow morning. As for me, I am going to be relaxing in a nice hot bath watching the 3^rd season of True Blood on my laptop while drinking a glass of Merlot and eating some chicken fingers.

Kenny. 

[A Negro in Black America] AIDS in Black America (Pt. 1): The Awareness Gap

Did you know that February 7^th was Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day? Funny. For some reason, I didn’t know about this day or had forgotten about it. Plus, I doubt that there are many in the African-American community that knows about this day either unless they are infected with the virus of course. It’s not heavily promoted like World AIDS Day, which is on December 1^st, but it is one day that many people should take a moment to reflect on. Since we are no longer in the era where hospitals are filled with the skeletonized figures begging for death, the threat of this diseases is so minimized… almost as if it is on the same playing field as other chronic ailments like diabetes. Medications and images of people like Magic Johnson, who has been living with the virus for many years in the public eye, have giving to the illusion that everything will be okay with just a few pills a day. But let’s be real… New treatment doesn’t mean a solution since there is no money in a cure. Treatment is the ultimate cash cow now isn’t it? But I digress…

Over the last 10 plus years, HIV/AIDS in the Black community has sky rocketed, especially among Black woman, but that doesn’t seem to be headline news.  A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog (for those that followed me for a minute, it was during the Yahoo! 360 days, where social networking blogging was as simple as 1-2-3) concerning an ABC Primetime special which focused on the AIDS pandemic in the Black community. Thanks to Youtube (I posted the playlist onto my tumblr page (itsjustkenny!) for all those that would like to view the program for themselves), I watched the program once again and felt the same way I did back in 2006 when it first premiered. I remember sitting at my aunt’s house in New Jersey with a pen and a pad, taking down pages of notes of what I wanted to express, just to have people barely notice the blog until 2 years later when I reposted it to another social networking site.. The program itself wasn’t ground breaking or revealed anything that wasn’t already known. All it did was highlight five points on how the virus had effect the Black community.

The reasons were:

1. 1.      The government’s ignorance and/or indifference on the toll this disease has done to the Black and Brown communities and the impact of celebrities who raise money for other countries HIV/AIDS relief programs instead places closer to home,
2. 2.      The failure of the government to enact programs that have been proven to decrease the spread of the disease.
3. 3.      The sexual habits of Black men and women.
4. 4.      The “Down Low”, where men engage in homosexual acts but proclaim heterosexuality.
5. 5.      The failure of Black leaders especially those in the highly held Black church, to take a stand concerning HIV/AIDS.

In this Blog I am going to discuss the first 2 of the 5 points. Since the cultural war of the 80’s, when the HIV/AIDS pandemic began, it was seen as only a White Gay Male disease. Many conservatives in congress during that time did not want government funds going to people who in their view were suffering from the effects of their anti-Christian lifestyle choice. In fact many did not want to even acknowledge the problem existed at all. There was a clear failure to see this as it was by President Reagan’s administration at least in the public eye. Silence created more damaged, because it allowed people to become influenced by ignorance, prejudice and misinformation which polarized the topic from progressing even further. While the stigma surrounding the HIV/AIDS may have changed throughout the years, in the Black community it remained the same. It was something that you did not discuss unless you had to and if there was some one that you knew with it then you had to not be around them out of fear. It was just a GAY WHITE DISEASE and the other ways that the virus was spread, like IV drug use, was not as focused on until it was too late.

When the war on drugs took hold in the African American community, pretty much moving a segment of the population from the street and into prisons, many were infected with the virus but did not know it. While I will go into the how prisons have helped in the stigma and spread of the disease at a later date, I will say this… Men who may have contracted the disease through IV drug use are put into an environment where condoms are prohibited but rape and relationships are known to happen, the once release will continue to partake in heterosexual relationships. This allows the virus and other disease to get quickly passed around. Both Bush administrations opposed providing money for programs like needle exchange, which provided clean needles to IV drug users (something that has been successful in other countries) instead of sharing needles with one another because they believed that programs like this would encourage drug use. As we all know, without the funding it could not get off the ground. The Clinton Administration took no action. While many thought he would support such a plan, he had no political capital to spend because of the scandal with Monica Lewinsky. Once again, the idea of funding something that could provide some kind of small solution was put on the backburner. The current Obama Administration has not taken a stand on this matter as well. Maybe because there are a whole host of problems going on with the world today, but with new medical technologies like stem cell research hope is on the horizon.

What the question that should be asked now is whether or not the government will follow suit and see provide the funding for something that is crippling the Black community. In a 2004 vice presidential debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards, Gwen Ifill, asked both men about the government’s role in decreasing the newly infection rates among Black women. While Dick Cheney proclaimed ignorance about the infection rate and provided no real answer but vowed to “look into it” during his next administration, his democrat opponent John Edward did not do any better by talking about what’s going on with the AIDS effort in Africa and China. How that relates to African-Americans in the United States, I have no idea. Flash forward 4 years, during the 2008 presidential elections, in one of the Democrat debates which was moderated by Travis Smiley, every candidate gave impassionate statements about what they plan to do about AIDS in Black America if they were elected. The Republican candidates were never publicly asked or at least I cannot find a video at this moment of any of them talking about it. Besides the reauthorization in 2009 of the Ryan White Care Act by President Obama, there has been nothing really said on the matter concerning HIV/AIDS here in the states.

Aboard is a very different and complicated matter.

I used to hate seeing African-American urban and not so urban celebrities (i.e. Beyonce, P. Diddy, The Oprah, etc…) trot off to Africa to do a concert, hold a few press conferences about what they are doing in the AIDS relief front and be shown walking through a neighborhood with kids running around them. I thought it was asinine. I could not understand why it was so hard for them to do something here as well as Africa. What about a PSA or a foundation to benefit those living with the virus? What about a campaign that talks open and honestly about condoms usage or sexual relationships. Hold town hall meetings about how men and women should be honest about their sexual behavior and get tested together. Talk about how HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among Black women from the ages of 25-30. Hell, go on high schools, college campuses, rallies and parades and while popping bottles and just say protect yourself.

But the reality is… Things were really F-ed up there in Africa and it continues to be with sparks of success stories here and there. Like how the crack era took a whole generation of parents and children away from their families. The virus and a whole host of disease have done so over there. Generic drugs, proper medical facilities and qualified physicians, all the things that we take for granted here in the states, are sparse. More awareness is needed and the one (and ONLY) thing I used to praise former President Bush about was his handling of the AIDS crisis in Africa, by increasing the funding with The President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR/Emergency Plan) which was a commitment of billions over five years. HOWEVER that is a double edge sword. If you look some African countries like Uganda, ultra conservatives American groups like “The Family” have successfully encourage AIDS stricken countries to drop the platform of condom usage, which was working to promote an “abstinent only” policy dealing with the threat of the disease and as a provision that 20 percent of the funding from PEPFAR must go to abstinent only programs. Powerful Evangelicals pastors have used their influence to encouraged government officials to be move to more of a faith base government. Our tax dollars are pushing this agenda, but it seems like no one is either admitting it or what us to know about it and current programs here in the states that those with the virus rely on are either underutilized, underfunded or unappreciated.

In the continuing global fight against HIV/AIDS, the world is forgetting about what is going on on the home front. HIV/AIDS is still infecting our communities and killing a new generation without the same outcry that came from the 80’s. With a disease continually on the rise, what can we do as a community to get our government’s attention…

Speak out!

Kenny.