Der Deutsche Snoop

Reflection

Does everyone who decides to pursue a dream go through hard times?  

Are pain and a constant undercurrent of fear and frustration the dreamers most intimate companions at the beginning (or always)?  I wonder.  

What's up with your hair?

So, I live in a Polish/Ukrainian neighborhood and while what I'm about to write will sound a bit ignorant, I'm going to go for broke anyway.

Practically every single woman in the 'hood (and it really is the 'hood) has this crazy atonal dye job.  It's really amazing, you see every thing from yellow-orange (literally), orange (literally), red (literally), red-orange (literally), a strange purple color, to maroon (literally), and finally black.  I mean really, you could put your crayon up to their heads and it would match.  And I say atonal, because the colors simply do not, could not, would not ever match their skin tones.  It seems to be de rigeur in the community.  But see, this is not a recent phenomenon.  I remember having this conversation with a Polish friend of mine at least 10 years ago here in the city and she told me "Yes, my people are racist against Blacks, always talking about their crazy hair and tacky, flashy clothing, but what they don't realize is that they have more in common with that than they'd ever be willing to admit."  

It seems my old friend Iwona is still right after all these years...

Afro puff

My hair is natural.  Finally, after about 8 months it is getting where I want it to be.  I love it, I am consistently happy with it and never feel regret or doubt about it.  It's really is odd that I should even think that way, that I should utter that statement, but we live in a world where it is considered bizarre that a black person might want to sport their own natural hair.  People are baffled when you revel in your hair texture, the kinky coils, the tight corkscrew curls.  I spend a lot of time with people from Latin America, Brazil in particular, and they are amazed that I would want an afro.  I have been asked numerous times why I don't straighten my hair, tonight it happened again, after a woman noticed that my hair, when pulled straight, reached to the nape of my neck.  She looked startled, particularly because it looks only about two inches long.  "Why don't you straighten it?"  she asked.  "It would be so pretty and it would blow in the wind."  

I've heard this basic sentiment from all people of color.  Only white people say "Oh my God, I love your hair, it's so beautiful!"  I have my theories about that, of course, but that's another commentary.  It's crazy really that the natural me is considered a "style" and not just me.  It's amazing that the accepted and EXPECTED hairstyle for black women is one that requires the use of harsh chemicals or searing heat to completely alter the hair.  What's even crazier, is that we do it.  I did it forever.  It's considered part of a beauty regimen:  makeup, clothes, manicure, touch up.  Really, it's terrible.  Not that people straighten their hair, but because they feel that they have to.  Black women feel like they don't look neat or taken care of or that their hair is not done if it's not straightened.  Even the ones who aren't self-hating think that.  Some may say it's just easier, but it's not easier at all, it's just that they've accepted that straight hair = attractive and straight hair = female beauty.  Not me, I love my hair.  Maybe even more because I'm lazy.  I know that I may blow my hair straight someday to change up my look temporarily, but it will never again be because 'I have to get my hair done.'  And most importantly, no more chemicals. Ever. 

Fantasy 1; Reality 0

I realize this is not about food but...

The movie, "Humboldt Park" is being filmed in and around my neighborhood.  I don't actually live in HP but very close and I spend lots of time there, because I'm wishing that, when I'd made the decision to spend the next year on American soil this past summer, that I'd expended a bit more effort trudging through the neighborhood to find a gem among the tenements there. However, I took the first thing I saw, a cute, too small, half-tenement just south in the Ukrainian Village, which is still the 'hood (oh yes!) just with an Eastern European accent.  

Anyway, I was walking through the HP today (exercise walking, something I'm committing myself to, trying actually to work up to jogging in the coming weeks).  On the way in, I passed a film crew setting up for the shoot and on the way back I tried to follow the same route and this boy (he was probably early to mid-twenties, part of the patchouli set) ran up on me and declared:

 

"We're filming a movie."  I mean like right all up in my face.  

My response, of course was: "And..." "Well, can you go around?" He half asked.

"I live right up there, what sense would it make for me to go around two blocks?"

"But, we're filming a MOVIE here." He says, as though it matters.

This is part of a huge problem in our society.  It is not that I didn't know that they were filming a movie, as I said they've been doing it for almost a month now in the two adjacent neighborhoods.  So I had no problem going around.  My problem was that this youngsta seemed to think that it mattered more than the fact that he and the film crew that pays him are invading my neighborhood, making it impossible for me to walk down to the laundromat to wash my down comforter in the big washer and high powered dryer conveniently.  They are making it difficult for people to park, they are making it difficult for children and the elderly to get where they need to go easily and on top of it they keep slapping a sign that says bodega in front of the stores where they are shooting.  This is not New York.  We do not have bodegas here, I mean, obviously we have them, we just don't call them that.  No one in the neighborhood calls them that here.  People are annoyed that they are making life inconvenient and that they are not truly representing the neighborhood.  Instead of using established businesses, they have scoped out businesses of gentrifiers and slapped signs like bodega and pasteleria in front (Pasteleria, what the hell is that?  Again, I know what it would be, if we had that here, but come on, aren't people supposed to do a little research to ensure authenticity) and people who were once excited and happy that the neighborhood was getting attention, are much less so.  I shudder to think what they would do in a black neighborhood.  Oh, but wait, they don't really make movies about black people that are filmed on location in areas where black people live and work, unless its a period piece, or The Wire, which isn't even a movie, and since there are few projects left around here in Chicago anymore, and no plantations, there's probably nothing to worry about.

So, I'll stop.  The point is that I was annoyed by dude because he thought that making a movie really mattered more than my life or the lives of others in and around the shoot.  That's the problem with society today, too many people think fantasy is more important, more worthy, more serious that reality.

sigh.

Oh yes, I'm quite sure I won't be seeing this one because it has John Leguizamo and Debra Messing starring as central characters, and they both offend my sensibilities. Don't ask me where D.M. fits in... Someone with a greater tolerance that I will have to tell me about that after they see it.

Phoenix dactylifera

Dates at various stages of ripeness

Since I began exploring and writing about North African and Middle Eastern food a few years ago, I embraced one particular food that I'd heretofore rejected:  dates.

Phoenix dactylifera or the date palm.  Dates are quite simply one of the most perfect, nutritionally balanced foods, but that didn't matter to me before, I thought of them as big, fat, overgrown raisins (don't particularly like raisins) when the truth was really that I'd never actually eaten one.  I just remember them most from date nut granola cereals as a child.  More significantly they struck me as looking quite like huge water bugs that one finds near open drains or in damp areas such as basements, so this, of course, did not help their cause with me one bit. 

But after living in Paris a few years ago, I ate my first Algerian pastry, called a makrout.  It's a little diamond-shaped cake, not much bigger than a petit-four that's made from semolina dough and filled with date paste flavored with orange flower water and a hint of cinnamon. 

Sometimes they are fried, always they are delicious.  

Anyway, after that, as I got to know more about the cakes and about Algerian culture, I noticed that while visiting with friends, I would get offered dates and milk.  There were Algerian deglet noor for sale in every shop in the African/North African neighborhoods where I spent my time. And I also noticed that everyone always had a box on hand at home.

Later after returning to the U.S. and beginning research for my article Gateaux Algeriens:  A Love Affair, I learned that dates (and milk) were the food that Mohammed ate to break his fast. I learned that desert nomads sometimes eat nothing but dates and milk to sustain them because they are extremely nourishing and packed with natural sugars that help maintain energy levels in such harsh environments.  Incidentally the Arabic name for dates is tamr and just the other day I learned that the Portuguese name for them is awfully close:  tamara. How's that for some ancient cultural diffusion?  I learned that dates are ingredients in both sweet and savory dishes all across the Middle East and North Africa and I've even tried a few.  There is nothing quite like Rice with dates and almonds as a side dish for a succulent baked chicken, or even a stuffing for all types of fowl.  YUM!  It's also particularly good as a side with pork roast or chops, because pork just marries so well with sweet fruit.

They have a fascinating history and there is so much lore surrounding them, they are incidentally one of the oldest cultivated fruits in the world and of course they grow on date palms.  Not the kind of palm trees in the tropics, they really need the dry air and the heat of the desert to flourish.

These days I keep a stash in my own refrigerator to eat as a snack or to use in recipes.  They are now a staple in my pantry.

Stolen Loot...

Okay, I recognize that I should be writing more posts about food.  To date only one since I took up blogging again.  I promise myself the next three will be about food, but I had to pay homage, to these M.C.'s.  Here for your (if you're reading) but mostly my viewing pleasure are:

Masta Ace

Craig G

A.G.

This is courtesy of Jay Smooth of illdoctrine.com.  Too much.   Jay Smooth, who has a great blog and an admirable perspective on things, has that endearing Skip Gates dork-iness to him, which is cute.  If you've seen any of the PBS documentaries he's done you'll know what I mean when you visit his site and view a couple of his video entries.   

Anyway, I love Hip-Hop, I can't say more than that.  

*I must give props to Jay Smooth for all he has done for the Hip-Hop cause with his site hiphopmusic.com, his blog, illdoctrine.com, and his radio show (check info here).  

addendum

I really love Slate.com.  I have to get something on that site, anyway check this out about Margaret Seltzer, or excuse me, Margaret B. Jones

Enjoy!

They really didn't know?

I've been keeping up with the reports on the rash of faked memoirs lately.  Well, I guess it's only two.**  The first is the Holocaust memoir by Misha Defonseca and the second is the Growing Up in the 'Hood memoir by Margaret Seltzer.  The first one, called: "Misha:  A Memoire of the Holocaust Years."  The author recounts her experiences of escaping the Nazis, being adopted by wolves, taking 1900-mile trek across Europe, and shanking a German soldier (SS or Luftwafen, I don't know, I haven't read the book) at the age of seven, I think.  No need to blink, put on your glasses, or re-read the last sentence, your vision is not blurry and there are no typos there, you got it right the first time--your girl Misha said she was raised by wolves.

The second, a ghetto fantasy, if you will, is called:  "Love and Consequences," and describes Seltzer's experiences as a half-breed (Native and white) living in an African-American foster family (!) in  South Central Los Angeles, where she quickly becomes engulfed in the whole Bloods/Crips saga as a drug runner and then dealer grace a her foster brothers Jamal and Devante.  No, I'm kidding, her foster brothers' names were Terrell and Taye.  Check out the NY Times article on the subject.

Everyone with good sense knows that anything is possible.  Really, I am a firm believer that no story is too fanciful, because after my share of adventurous living--and I mean that in the substance-free sense of things--I have some stories that one would have to live to believe. Having said that, however, sometimes, things just really don't add up.  Ms. Seltzer's tale is one of those that leave you wondering...

Well, it turns out that her "memoir" is actually the ghetto fantasy of an upper-middle class, 100% white woman who was so fascinated by the 'hood and all of its trappings after a short stint as a teacher, in what I am assuming was the public school system, that she decided to create a life and write a book about it, claiming the story as her own.  

I will not deny, that ghetto/gang life can be seductive to the outsider.  Even to the insider, or so many people wouldn't be down for whatever.  While desperation and/or poverty might push you out there I don't believe the two are enough to keep you out there like that, that life, from my observations is just too hard on the soul.  

My first encounter with the culture, which came after living the white-bred life of just about every American black kid whose parents move them to to suburbs in this country, smacked of romanticization. But after realizing that I was not so far from that life, that my parents and I were both born into that life and that thankfully unlike most of my extended family we had escaped.  It's not fun, and seeing friends and family atrophy in cellblocks or in crack houses, or even at local departments of human services, well, I snapped out of it.  Don't get me wrong, the ghetto has its charms, where else can you indulge passions for fancy hairdos, fancy kicks, and fried shrimp and catfish all in a two-block radius.  I mean really, some of those catfish shacks turn it out.  Still and all I'd rather just visit and go back to my cozy de-luxe apartment in the sky (not really, all that, but you know...), especially if I happen to working in the 'hood too, then its definitely sensory overload, but that's another story.  My point is, the 'hood is not to be romanticized.  I like the 'hood.  I like the ghetto, it feels like home, because it is for me at the root of all things.  BUT...

So my point is, that anyone with any commonsense would see that this story is highly unlikely for several reasons:

1.  I can't imagine a foster care system anywhere that would put a white kid in the 'hood with a black family, even if said white kid was half Native.  That's even more of a reason they wouldn't do it.  It's the same reason you never see black people adopting white kids.  I'm pretty sure adoptions agencies don't bring out the Asian-white-Native baby books when Black couples roll up.  It's just not done.  And if it is, somebody tell me something, please.  

2.  At one point in the book (as quoted in the article) the author says that:

"One of the first things I did when I started making drug money was to buy a burial plot..."  What? I say.  This kid is supposed to be 14 when this all starts.  You're telling me she had the forethought to prepare for imminent death at 14?  I was a public school teacher for six+ years and while I had some true geniuses,who were triple threats with street smarts and commonsense on top of it all--the smartest among my students were usually out in the streets like this woman claimed she was--I could never see it.   Not when there are the latest Air Force Ones, bad gangsta rap, and plenty of Flamin' Hots to be purchased.  Or even food, clothes, or transportation for the family in some cases. Come on now.  No kid has it like that.  Most adults don't.

3.  Finally, and this may sound comical, the foster mother is called Big Mom. What I'm referring to here are the snippets of language in quotes from the book.  For example the character used drug money to buy a burial plot.  People say that, but not so much and if her character was writing a true-life gritty street tale of the streets, she probably wouldn't either. It's interesting that the article cites several reviewers of the book thought the language to be contrived or a bit too embellished or even awkward.  

The kicker is that she got busted because her sister saw a profile of her in the New York Times referencing her as the author of the book and then subsequently blew the whistle on her.

At the end Seltzer says essentially that she just wanted to bring attention to the plight of the people about whom she wrote and that maybe she didn't do it in the best way.  Publishers who worked with her seem to justify her and themselves by saying that it all happened because she's just so naive.  Humph. I'm not sure naive is what I'd call her.

What I don't understand, is why not just bill it as a work of fiction?  Why co-opt a story built from fantasy.  Why own such a story?  People who live these stories don't necessarily want to own them.  SIGH.  It reminds me of one of Dave Chappelle's standup acts where he talks about people repping the streets constantly, with a declarative "I'm from the streets!" in response to which he says basically:  'Oh, how unfortunate for you.'  

Doing you is ok.  Really.  And no matter what anybody says, it's not ok to do somebody else for money (in either sense of this unavoidable pun).  I'm certain this woman would have never said a word if she hadn't gotten busted, she would have raked in the cash, gone on the book tours, inevitably shared a couch with Oprah.  I wonder if she would have given some of her earnings to the people whose stories she claimed as her own.  

I guess we'll never know.  Too bad she and Misha didn't have access to this from the good people at Slate.com.

**Let me add to this list Ishmael Beah ("A Long Way Gone"), Marjane Satrapi (for taking "extensive liberties..." with the subject matter of "Persepolis' and "Persepolis 2"), and Dave Eggers for actually not taking liberties in "What is the What".  The thing is these books sound fabulous, without the extras, with the exception of Eggers, who I am not feeling.  Ever.  Hated "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," found it to be 400+ pages of smart-ass-(racist)-white-boyese.  As you can see I still haven't gotten over it and I read it about six years ago.

For Real?!?

My plan was to write a post about plantains and how I have almost totally swapped them for potatoes in my diet, but on my daily rounds of online news sites, I read an article about how Ohio has been the determinant in every presidential election since 1964 and why Ohio is a barometer of sorts for the nation's social and economic welfare.  I am from Toledo originally and while I lived there no longer than about a year or so when I was but a pup, I can tell you that after 30+ years of visiting periodically, that we're in a lot of trouble, if Ohio is every(wo)man's America.

As if we all didn't know that.  Anyway, what struck me about the article was a statement made by a couple of people that the author identified as diehard Republicans who had turned up at a Clinton rally.  Apparently, they decided to check out Hillary because they don't like the direction in which the country is heading under the Republicans.  

To this I say:  

HEADING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION?!?  

WE'VE ALREADY ARRIVED UP IN THIS PIECE!

I take this personally.  Who are the people offering up these inanities?  It is possible that the comment was taken out of context for journalistic license. Perhaps, but I doubt it.  Truthfully, I know who these people are, we all do.  They are my neighbors, acquaintances, even a few family members.  Hell, some of us are them.  I also know that things here in the United States could get worse.  Any follower of truth, any realist, knows, things (anything) can always get worse at anytime, but damn, heading?  Heading? 

They're only worried now?  I remember when GWB was first elected.  I was sick.  I vowed never to watch a State of the Union Address until he vacated the premises.  I decided that I would prefer to look up on the horizon and see the proverbial mushroom cloud (or literal, there's still time) rather than read about it's prelude day in day out or listen to dude rationalize ridiculousness each year, which would only serve to depress me further.  When it happened a second time, well, I really can't even begin to express how I felt.  I took that shit personally.  So, as an act of self-preservation, I have kept that initial promise to myself over the years and really, when I had a television, everytime GWB came on, I changed the station.  He offends me and he offended me long before Katrina and the recent trip to Africa.  I mean, think back to 2000, when he thought it pertinent in the course of addressing a meeting of the NAACP to remind the attendees that the Republican Party was the Party of Lincoln.  What?!?  

In 2001, I owned a television.  But the morning of September 11th, I remember that I got sick at work with the stomach flu, so while everyone was glued to the television in the conference room, I was driving south on Lake Shore Drive toward home, listening to radio coverage, crying my eyes out, and trying not to vomit.  I was fortunate enough to have missed the planes slam into the twin towers, fortunate enough to have missed desperate human beings hurling themselves from the windows of the buildings, and especially fortunate to have missed GWB's first reaction upon being informed while reading to babies in Washington, D.C.  What shocked me was that he was reading to them (no really) not his reaction, one could have easily predicted that.  I was annoyed (and still am) that he didn't actually go to New York after it happened.  He really should have, I don't care what anybody says. I n hindsight, is it any wonder that he did little more than fly above the hardest hit areas in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, or that he decided on his recent visit to Africa that he would focus on the success stories?  He's a punk. But, no, all of that is not what made people think we're heading in the wrong direction.

Which brings me to Katrina.  I didn't have a television at that time.  So I only saw what happened months after.  Why is it that only now, these people (who I am using as a representative entity for the great majority of Americans) don't like the direction in which the country is headed?  Why is it that no one says, 'Look, Bush and his crew have run the country into the ground, blatantly showcasing their racism, class-ism, and sexism and I am ashamed that I've played a role in letting them, so that's why I'm here to see what Hillary has to say'? That of course, doesn't exclude me or any of us who consider ourselves, thinking adults, liberals, whatever...but

Just once, I'd like to hear it said just that way.

  

Patisseries Algeriennes

Oh la la.  Comme je pense des patisseries.  Ca semble un peu bizarre je suis sure, mais c'est la verite.  Une vie sans ces patisseries...je ne peux pas l'imaginer.  

It's all true.  I am feeling the pull of the cakes that seduced me in Paris.  It's so difficult for me being away from all of that.  Just look at them....

Can you blame me?

I am working on edits for an article about a local neighborhood here in the Chi that I have always loved.  I've wanted to write about food, in Humboldt Park since I moved back, because Puerto Rican food is the shit.  While my editor is providing neither adequate direction nor time in which to get things done, I still relish the assignment.  

So, I am hard at work this evening, after she told me on Friday to include three more restaurants in my piece that would boost my word count from the 900 she originally told me to use as a cap up to probably 1500.  

I spent the afternoon going from place to place and met the owner of a really great place called La Bruquena.  I didn't include it originally, but I'm glad I went, because now, after a long conversation about Caribbean food, food of the African Diaspora, and gentrification, excitement about a project (actually an idea that's been floating in my head for ages) has been renewed. I've wanted to write something about food of the Diaspora and I have notes and research like crazy that I have not compiled or organized.  I am fascinated at the ways in which Africa has manifested itself in cuisine outside the continent.  I have been working at a Brazilian place and researching (and of course, eating) Puerto Rican and Dominican food lately, all of which has served to heighten my interest and reflection on the subject.  Dominican food, by the way, is surprisingly refined with diverse elements one would not expect.  At least I didn't expect it--I suppose I lumped it in with Puerto Rican food.  I never thought before about how its proximity to Haiti with its French and African influences might be reflected in the DR and vice versa with the Spanish.

Anyway, all of this, coupled with my knowledge of and experience cooking African American food (I still can't quite get down with the term soul food, although African American bothers me too, and southern doesn't quite do what I need it to either) whipped me into a frenzy today while talking to the owner of the restaurant who agreed to meet and talk about food and perhaps show me a few things in the kitchen. 

I love it when this happens.  It's like being on a diet and finally seeing those first few pounds fall off.  That's what keeps you motivated to press on. (I haven't had that happen.  Ever.  So, I am only imagining this.)  I have been working so much, laboring under the stress of poverty, rejection, and general fatigue only to find out that my efforts are paying off in the most unexpected of ways.

There's so much to do.

Feed Your Mind...

I don't have a television.  Partly by design and partly because I just don't have the money to buy even a used one from Craigslist.  I also can't imagine scraping together money for basic cable which would be the only way to get any reception of television stations at all...

When I returned to the Chi from Paris via Seattle, I had made the decision to jump into freelancing head first and not get a television.  I planned to get myself back into reading and particularly fiction.  And so I've done both, although, the first part of the plan has been difficult. The second part has been surprisingly difficult too.  Anyway, here are the books I've read since September:

1.  Leni - Steven Bach

2.  Mouth Wide Open - John Thorne

3.  Snow - Orhan Pahmuk

4.  The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz

5.  The Known World - Edward P. Jones (in progress)*

I'm a little ashamed that the list only consists of five, particularly because I had to read John Thorne's book for a review I wrote that will be published in Gastronomica, but at least I can proudly declare that nothing by Zane or even Iyanla Van Zant is part of it.  I suppose life, survival, etc. has kept me busy.  My head has not always in a good place for reading.  

Next up for me, however:

1.  The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James

2.  The Master Butcher's Singing Club - Louise Erdrich

3.  Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

4.  A Handmade's Tale - Margaret Atwood

5.  Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler

(...the next few I started long ago (we're talking years here)  and I finally plan to finish them)

6.  The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse - Louise Erdrich

7.  Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

8.  A Death in Brazil - Peter Robb

9.  Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison 

10.  Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I am deeply ashamed at never having finished 6, 7, 9, and 10, but I will before spring ends.  

Overall I'm happy with life without television.  Sometimes I long for it, but really, $60+ each month to watch really shitty things is not worth it.  Now, with the end of The Wire and the fact that I can catch Boondocks episodes online, there's no real motivation.  Maybe when those elusive siblings economic/career stability decide to grace me with their collective presence, I can contemplate such a purchase.  Until then, if, in fact that day does arrive, I'll continue working my way through the stacks of unopened tomes that call my bookshelves home and giving my library card a much needed workout.

*Update

I finished The Known World last night.  It is quite an astounding book because it felt like a family history, like Edward P. Jones was actually there, as though he was channeling the ancestors.  I don't know what to say.

El Negro Calde...

While I am rarely moved by celebrities, or anyone for that matter, I have to admit that occasionally I become fixated on people. I am willing to admit to an irrational obssession with Snoop Dogg that lasted from the time he first emerged on the scene on the Deep Cover soundtrack until 2005 when he released Drop It Like It's Hot. Great song, but I was horrified by the video in which, as many of you know, he featured his children along with shots of scantily clad booty girls, shots of him doing the crip walk, and shots of him getting his toke on. Up until that time, he'd put me through many changes as I tried to stick with him through the No Limit Soldier years, through the ridiculous MTV shows and those pigtails he seems so fond of, and even through the -izzle schtick he continued (excuse me, continues) to ply even after he heard countless white people co-opting. 

God knows, I tried. I tried, Snoop. 

But after the babies and the weed and the booties and the crip walk all together on film, I realized it was not to be. I had to let him go.

Anyway, now I've found someone new, but I feel much better about him, it's Tego Calderon.  I'm not ashamed to go into a store and proudly place his CD on the counter and say "Yes, I'm ready, ring me up, please."  I only felt that way once about Snoop, when I bought a replacement copy of Doggystyle, years after I'd purchased the original. 

So, o.k., this man makes me tingly all over. I don't know what it is exactly. There's something incredibly sexy about him. I once read him described as being "perpetually craggy" it fits, at least aesthetically. I could go on to describe why I find him handsome, but I'll spare you dear reader; my tastes often lean toward the unconventional. I just have to say that he has the most beautiful skin color. Amazing. You just don't find that tone among Black Americans, even with the many lovely hues you do find among us, it has to have something to do with the Spanish rather than English (or Scottish, rather) part of the mix.

Anyway, I haven't seen him speak or be interviewed, although back when I was plugged in I had VH1 Soul (the one thing I miss) and saw him in Bling'd touring Africa to learn about blood diamonds. I have only one of his albums (do the kids still say that these days?), the first, El Abayarde and it is really a piece of art. I'd had it over a year and I'd listened, but about a month ago, I really listened. It's quite masterful and so hip hop. Reggaeton, for all intents and purposes, I find wack. That's just my personal opinion, that was strengthened when I learned that artists like Ivy Queen, Daddy Yankee, and Don Omar were clowning at the Latin Grammy Awards a few months ago when Calle 13 won album or artist of the year, I don't remember which one it was. Who knew they served haterade at awards shows? They actually walked out in protest and then made it worse by speaking on it in interviews!!

For real? It's like that? So not hip-hop.

It was astounding because Calle 13 is really, really good. Really interesting and creative. Perhaps I don't understand the world of Reggaeton and if that is any indication, I don't want to. I also understand that right now I could be sounding like white people debating the issue of why a group like Arrested Development represents ground-breaking hip-hop while slamming say, Grand Puba or X-Clan.  However, I do know that hating--even though we all do it from time to time--is not cute.  Especially not on live television.

Anyway, Mr. Calderon, did not walk out. He is actually the model for a character in a book I am writing. I'd love to interview him someday, that is if I didn't get too tingly. 

He has great sensibilities, at least as conveyed through his music. Really innovative.  Did I mention he has a lisp and it sounds cool.  He's not the first MC with a lisp, but...anyway, enough...

I'm no longer conflicted.

Changes...

These days I am going through (or should I say, continue to be going through) some changes. Since 2004 really when I sold my belongings, donated my car to a charity and then headed to Paris with the intent of expatriating, my life has been moving on and on and on...

Still.

It has not stopped. Now I am in the throes of trying to make a career as a writer. Now, I call myself a writer. Now I am a writer. I have written some beautiful things several, including one of the most beautiful, was even published. I have the makings of a novel in my sacred notebook and in my sacred MacBook. I am doing just about everything I ever wanted, you know: writing, cooking, traveling, even living with abandon pretty consistently these days...the only thing that's missing is loving. But that's not what I plan to delve into here. No.

Now I live in poverty. In the past three months, I made $80 from my writing. Since I decided to make a go of it full-time, I no longer have money or time for the things I once did. I have gone through my savings, borrowed, begged, but not yet stolen, although I have been there too since I started on this path in 2004, and I've learned that no one anywhere should ever say "Never!" Never does not exist when you're really living. Sometimes you have to get that hustle going any way you can (well, within reason) This is not meant to sound high-handed or uppity. I'm no uppity negro (at least not about things like this). Anyway, to the point...

I am living in poverty. Proof: I'm on welfare now. I currently have a Link Card. Which, for those not from the great state of Illinois, means I'm on food stamps. Funny, like a drug, I am on food stamps and I have to admit that I might be hooked. When you take your card and swipe it and it pays without drawing money from your coffers, you feel as though you've been given a gift of some sort, especially when you head through the line at Whole Foods. Something exhilarating about food stamps at Whole Foods, I'm not gonna lie. The looks on the faces of the wealthy white folks...that's another post, another day, another commentary. Anyway, I'll miss my Link Card when this stage of life passes! The truth is, this Link Card, it's my right and I've been contributing to the fund for years so I have no qualms about making a withdrawal as piddling as my $160 a month.

In other areas of my life, I have had to seek rental assistance from the city's Department of Human Services. Who knew that there was rental assistance that didn't involve folding sweaters at the Gap on evenings and weekends after you finished your real day job?

Please don't get me wrong. Don't think I'm making light of poverty and what it does to people, on the contrary. Don't think that this is fun, this poverty stuff, as a great many of our brethren can attest to, is not for suckers. It's hard and I'm not even REALLY poor. In a sense I am doing this by choice, because with my Master's degree and my French fluency and the rest, I could go get a job and stack some paper, just like I was before I decided to let art rule my heart and thus, my life. But yes, it's tough, not only because you have to constantly be thinking about what's what, what will be, what might be, and what isn't, in a way that you don't when your bank account is padded, but because at every turn you have to prove that you are in need and what you say you are: POOR.

I'm learning that the prevailing sentiment is that poor people are criminals. That somehow they want to be poor. Now, of course, some of them are criminals let's just get that out there, because I have a few in the fam who stand out in my mind as shining examples, however, as trifling as they are, I don't think even they aspire to poverty. But overall, I know well in this three-year journey from young urban professional to artist that poverty causes crime in most circles, but again, another post, another day, another commentary.

I have had to produce documents detailing my poverty, I have had to get official documentation from friends and employers substantiating my plight and hope that someone somewhere sitting in an office would believe me when I said that I only had $5.37 in my checking account until God knows when, and "could you please help me out so I can by some soy milk?"  

I have had people treat me terribly. First those who assumed that I am just another lazy Black Woman. Probably with a few kids--someone actually checked the yes box on a form and then asked me "How many?" without even looking up.  Another case worker told me that she would pass me on for someone to deal with me.  Yet another fat-punk-ass-hot-ass-breath-having security guard (oooh, sorry, it got personal for a minute) at a social service agency spoke to me in Spanish thinking first that I was Puerto Rican.  When he found out I was not, he was extremely rude and refused to help me. I know this because while my spoken Spanish is rusty, I understand it like it was my own tongue.  When speaking with my downtrodden Latin brethren, he was the picture of courtesy.  Of course, I had to check them all.  I had to tell them all: 'have some respect, show some respect, I am human and I am struggling, just like you are/have/may be one day.'

But none of that mattered.

It was only when they learned that I am a writer with degrees and travels under my belt and shit, speaking foreign languages and shit. It was only then that they showed a modicum of respect. Only when I wasn't just a trifling, po', black ass hood rat (what they assume of every Black Woman who walks in the door) that they began to look at my face. Even my beauty, my big butt, my smile, none of it mattered, at least not that I could tell. It's been an education for real. I don't want to end on a corny note saying things like: "it's all part of the journey..." or "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger..." or "I'll look back on all of this and laugh..." because the truth is, it shouldn't have to be, that's not always true, and I probably won't.

So I'll say, we should stop treating poor people like criminals, because when you are constantly worried you can't possibly be your best self or raise babies who grow up doing the same; we should support the arts so people who try to create beauty and truth don't have to struggle the way that they do; all black people are not trifling, uneducated lay abouts looking for a hand out; that security guard with all of his sin-verguenceria (how's that for Puerto Rican, security guard Garcia?) better be glad the homiez I could have called before moving to France are either on lockdown or dead, or he would be in a world of trouble. Maybe I'll just write a scathing letter to the editor and send it to the Chicago Tribune. How 'bout that, Garcia?

Que Dios Te Bendiga...

I have been inspired to return to blogging after reading a few excellent blogs from a few writer/scholar/hip hop heads out of NYC. It actually feels like a good decision to me after having left the fray a few years ago feeling that blogging was a mite too self-indulgent, and frankly, it is, but putting pen to paper or in this case, fingers to keyboard is therapeutic and I need an outlet these days.

So here I go...

Today I decided to do some work in a coffee shop in Humboldt Park that sells great Puerto Rican coffee (had a cortadito) and even better guava cake (took a pass on that as my bottom seems to be spreading at an alarming rate challenging even my own appreciation for bootyliciousness!). On my way, I passed a botanica that I've passed hundreds of times before without stopping. Today was different. I was drawn to the place, perhaps because I've been immersing myself quite deeply in the cultures of people of African descent in the Carribbean and American diasporas, I stopped in. I actually wanted to see if they had John the Conqueror floor wash, because times are hard up in the cut lately and I was feeling suddenly that a little hoodoo couldn't hurt. I ended up buying candles or novenas, whichever you prefer. This is not new for me, but it's been a minute. At one time, you couldn't enter my place without finding the Seven African Powers on a shelf, table, or mantle somewhere, but a move around the world and back disrupted my little ritual. But today, I remembered, so I picked up the SAP candle and two others for good measure: John the Conqueror (got him, although they didn't have floor wash) and a Fast Luck candle. Now I know that anyone reading this might be thinking overkill, but like I said, times are real hard in the cut! Anyway, for the first time, I had someone fix my candles, the woman had me write my name in the wax and then she brushed one of them with oils. She prayed over it and blessed me and then took the others to add the appropriate oils and herbs, after I explained my situation. She returned and once again prayed over them and blessed me. "...que Dios te bendiga..." she said, as she asked the spirits to protect my health and grant me peace, wealth, and much luck in love, among other things. I have them home burning, it's funny that I feel a bit of comfort now.

The truth is that it makes lots of sense to me. I want to learn more, maybe there's an article in it somewhere or a place for her in the book I'm currently working on. In the meantime, I will keep my candles burning and respectfully continue to ask Yemaya, Oshun, Obatala, Ogun, Elegua, Ogun, Shango, Orula, and Babaluaye to intercede on my behalf.

I don't like saffron. I made the Persian dish yesterday with a hint of saffron and it was the only thing I could taste. I kept thinking how delicious it would have been had I left it out. I've just never liked it. I don't like the smell or the taste of it, I don't understand why it's so prized. I mean, I do yet I don't. I have a full bottle of saffron syrup in my refrigerator that cost close to $20. I've had it almost a year and I really want to like it but it's not going down like that. I don't know why I bought it in the first place. Actually, of course I know why. SAFFRON SYRUP. Sounds incredibly intriguing. I'll have to try and find a good home for it soon...

Today I prepared a recipe from a cookbook I bought recently. It comes from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. The dish is what I would call a Persian casserole made with basmati rice, dates, lentils, and chicken, beef, or lamb. It is flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, and saffron. I made it with chicken, as I am trying to eat lighter these days. It was delicious. Not being entirely familiar with Persian cuisine outside of my frequent trips to restaurants in my old city, I'm not sure if it looks as it should, but I suppose I can worry about that the next time I try it. I really love Middle Eastern food. Research for some recent work I've done has gotten me interested in the cuisine. I can now count it as one of my favorites along with Mexican, Italian, and Southern cooking.

I have tried many of the recipes in Claudia Roden's book and I recommend it to anyone. One of the great things about the book --and there are many-- is that it offers recipes from countries throughout the Middle East. Many also have notes that instruct the cook on how to make a particular version of a recipe, meaning, you may be provided an Egyptian or Turkish recipe and Ms. Roden's notes let you know how you might make the Moroccan or Lebanese version of it. It's sure to make you a convert, if you don't already adore Middle Eastern food.

something delicious

Today I prepared a recipe from a cookbook I bought recently. It comes from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. The dish is what I would call a Persian casserole made with basmati rice, dates, lentils, and chicken, beef, or lamb. It is flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, and saffron. I made it with chicken, as I am trying to eat lighter these days. It was delicious. Not being entirely familiar with Persian cuisine outside of my frequent trips to restaurants in my old city, I'm not sure if it looks as it should, but I suppose I can worry about that the next time I try it. I really love Middle Eastern food. Research for some recent work I've done has gotten me interested in the cuisine. I can now count it as one of my favorites along with Mexican, Italian, and Southern cooking.

I have tried many of the recipes in Claudia Roden's book and I recommend it to anyone. One of the great things about the book --and there are many-- is that it offers recipes from countries throughout the Middle East. Many also have notes that instruct the cook on how to make a particular version of a recipe, meaning, you may be provided an Egyptian or Turkish recipe and Ms. Roden's notes let you know how you might make the Moroccan or Lebanese version of it. It's sure to make you a convert, if you don't already adore Middle Eastern food.

The end of a long hiatus?

So, I'm back. I don't know how long. So much has happened but right now I won't go into all of that. I need this spot right now because I am stumped. I have a writing assignment, a profile on someone in my class and OH MY GOD, is this woman boring. I have notes and I'm trying to make it work but...Maybe I've peaked and I just can't churn it out like I've been able to in the past. A big part of it is that I just don't write enough anymore. It's not part of my everyday. It's on my mind everyday, but I don't make it happen.

That's why I need this spot. I think of it a bit like warming your car on a winter morning. Revving it up, you know, so that things run smoothly. In the end, this is a good way of taking care of my writing, so to speak. It's gone down the toilette, I feel. But that is also another story. Now, the topic at hand is this boring woman. If I were good, wouldn't I just be able to churn this out, dazzling the masses in the process, one might ask? I don't know, she's pretty boring. And since, I've talked to her a total of about 50 minutes my entire life, the material I'm working from is pretty thin. Three pages of notes about how supportive and wonderful her husband and family are. Her current dilemma, not so much a dilemma as a heartwarming story to share with the grand babies later in life. Help. I wonder if she dots her I's with hearts? Her name isn't Candy or Tami or anything. But you know, too bad, that would make a great profile. Years of emotional abuse and neglect as a child have me convinced that healthy personal relationships are suspect. That might be overstating it a bit, certainly emotional stability and support can make for good writing (and reading). We'll see what I come up with. Maybe I'm just jealous.

I'm also feeling sorry for myself and that takes focus. Redirecting the considerable energy required for self-pity is no small feat. But I must. Maybe I'll make some popcorn. N0, no snacking. Procrastination is a sneaky whore isn't she?


Oh, yes, it's due tomorrow. I better raise up and get to work, y'all.

Peace in the Middle East.