“i live in the ghetto. you just come to visit me, ‘round election time.”

As yet another Election Day is upon us, I can’t help but wonder: how many people will be heading or marching to the polls with a clear(headed) agenda? How many will be voting with their HEARTS and not with their fears? And for all the millions that do vote, just what issues will they be basing their vote upon?

Considering the history of Black people and People of Color in this Country, for anyone to NOT exercise the right to vote is tantamount to a slap in the face to all those who struggled, fought, even lost their lives to see that we were afforded this basic Constitutional right!

I hope people will take that history and that struggle into consideration, and bring it right along with them into their voting booth. I hope people will vote with the truth of their hearts, and the voice of their conscience. With all the political hype and hoopla, it is far from being a perfect system, yet it remains (a small) way for us to send our voices directly to those who are supposed to represent us and our needs. This can not be ignored!

It's rare for me to use a video to make a point within the confines of this blog. However, this particular one reveals so much Truth that it seemed appropriate to include it here. It's a compelling look at America. It’s the America far too many people know by heart. It’s also the America some never see, and others never bother to consider.

There’s a line from Stevie Wonder’s Big Brother that reads:

“I Live In The Ghetto. You Just Come To Visit Me, ‘Round Election Time.”

Indeed. Maybe that’s the Real TRUTH of politics.

Watch this video, and I DARE you not to feel something!



"Big Brother" ( By Stevie Wonder)

“Your name is big brother
You say that you're watching me on the telly,
Seeing me go nowhere,
Your name is big brother,
You say that you're tired of me protesting,
Children dying everyday,
My name is nobody
But I can't wait to see your face inside my door

Your name is big brother
You say that you got me all in your notebook,
Writing it down everyday,
Your name is I'll see ya,
I'll change if you vote me in as the pres,
The President of your soul
I live in the ghetto,
You just come to visit me 'round election time

I live in the ghetto,
Someday I will move on my feet to the other side,
My name is secluded,
we live in a house the size of a matchbox,
Roaches live with us wall to wall,

You've killed all our leaders,
I don't even have to do nothin' to you
You'll cause your own country to fall!”




*Mad props to the talented artist/visionary “Rizashi” for putting together this compelling video.





One.

We Are Really 'TOO SHY TO SAY'???

“Too Shy To Say"

You make me smile
You make me sing
You make me feel good everything
You bring me up
When I've been down
This only happens when you're around

And I can't go on this way...
With it stronger every day...
But being too shy to say
That I really love you...

I wanna fly
Away with you
Until there's nothing more for us to do
I wanna be
More than a friend
Until the end of an endless end

And I can't go on this way...
With it stronger every day...
But being too shy to say
That I really love you...

And I can't go on this way...
Feelin' it stronger every day...
But being too shy to say
That I really love you
Ohh.. ooooooh-ohhhhh-who....
Oh, I... do...” ~ Stevie Wonder



Thank you, Sir Stevie!

I’ve always, ALWAYS appreciated The Gift and the artistry of Stevie Wonder… and I’ve always, ALWAYS adored that ballad. It is the sad song of the chronically shy and terminally tongue-tied soul. It is that quiet anthem of the frustrated inner poet. It fits perfectly with a theme I’ve been meaning to discuss. And this page seems as good a place as any to broach the subject:


Stevie sang that song ages ago. But the question remains today: Are WE Too Shy to SAY?

When we truly dig someone, like someone, even LOVE someone, why are some of us so damned tongue-tied about expressing it? Are we only poets at our fingertips? Are we spoken word artists performing live, for one-night-only, behind the mic of a cell phone?


How many of us are tried-and-true romantic waxers, angelically lush sweet-talkers? How many of us are mad spinners of magic, keen pitchers of woo, and yet… when face-to-face, belly-to-belly, we lose our juice... misplace our voodoo... drop-kick our lyrical muse?


Where do duh mojo go, yo?

Are we, in reality, these verbal stumblebums?


I ask this question because, I’ve noticed in myself, and in others, this strangely reticent factor enters into the realm all too often when we’re one-on-one.


In letters, on paper, on the phone, on my screen, I am King. I am all things: brilliant, verbose, sexy, clever and funny. I am the most wise, intelligent, sweet, deep, sensitive and kind mofo. In other words, I’m all harps and strings, and triangles tingling. I am the symphonic equivalent of Duh Bomb, yo.


So where does that bomb cat go... when he’s supposed to arrive and deliver that bomb show inside the beautiful, if less symphonic reality?


Is he shy? Is he dumb? Is he borderline retardo? Was he a Lyrical King, only by proxy, or did his doppelganger send in Cyrano?


I am fundamentally a word-man. Words are my friends. They sometimes represent me even better than my own physicality can. Words will spin around inside my chest, start a small riot in my viscera and then gracefully (or sometimes violently) pour from my fingertips.


This is the Art in me. This is the God Voice thrown from me. God is an Amazing Ventriloquist sometimes. Yet, it is still my voice.... my *authentic* voice, in lines, in dashes, in squiggles.


But... I don’t always speak the way I write. The Writer Me, well... he can be a tad more eloquent, more formal, more passionate, more didactic, more poetic, and more a dictator/conductor of my heart’s purest language.


Hmmm... but one can't go around speaking in the same way they write! That would be tres ridic, and mad corny, wouldn't it? It would not be very 2010 of me, to run around reciting these heartfelt soliloquies!


But apparently, I’m not alone. Often, I feel lost on a small prosaic planet of poetic souls, turned verbal idiots. People who’ve shown me so much promise, so much warmth, so many degrees of idealism, lyricism and spirituality are often struck near-mute, or become these linguistic morons when suddenly face-to-face, eye-to-eye.

Sure, ply us with liquor, or some artificial stimulant and we can riff, kick, and spit it... like the best romantic poet. But it's here, in our most sober skin… that the romantic can often take a prolonged hiatus.


I wonder WHY that is, and what it is in the human animal that shies away from ebullient, effusive, romantic expression. I mean, obviously, we are capable of it, as we’ve displayed its soulful music, shown fits and verses and stanzas of it with our craft! Yet, when pressed to spring into action, it all dissolves into that shy-not-so-special-less-unique tongue of the ordinary!

Are WE too SHY to say?

Are YOU too shy to riddle me an answer?


”And I can't go on this way...
Feelin' it stronger every day...
But being too shy to say
That I really love you
Ohh.. ooh...
I... do...” ~Stevie Wonder





One.