Listen, Kanye is outside of the box. We all know this. I wish I turned myself into a stampin fool when my father died but I went inward cause I don’t have that big beautiful painting of an ego that Kanye has. It’s not a diss. That ego is like a wall mural of a big city street during rush hour and sometimes we need that. What else would folks talk about if not Kanye sometimes?

But this ain’t about him or how I listen to “Flashing Lights” on repeat at the gym sometimes. This is about dude’s website with the BOMB art! How come nobody told me? He’s collected some beautiful images. Man, if you don’t have the $$ to fly to Paris or ain’t in the mood to stand by tourists NOT looking at the art at the museum, just click on this:

http://www.kanyewest.com/home/#/category/art/

No it’s not those weird bears he had in one video and it damn sure ain’t Amber Rose spread eagle (there is a sneaky image or two of the Ye and the former Bun but it’s not too bad - since you can see her for zero reason at the opening of an envelope these days). There’s a bunch of different types and styles ranging from Russian Prison tattoos, supermodels, Liberian children, Madonna and some vintage shots. Man, this dude should curate a bunch of stuff. Wait, that’s what he does already. Curate sounds awful close to create when you say it outloud, don’t it?

And it ain’t me.

I have a very interesting relationship with Vanity Fair magazine. I love it for its size. When it comes in the mailbox, I see myself in the bed with snacks, wearing my reading glasses (if I remember) and devouring almost ALL the articles, sad when I get to the Proust questionnaire because it’s all over then.  Sometimes the BF clowns me and he should. It’s not like Vanity Fair ever reached out to me directly. In fact, they bypass me and give me the stories I yearn for: there’s always a political story, a social story, a scandal story that may or may not be historical but still relevant, an art/architecture/fashion story and a bunch of bits that I either swoon over or bypass (I mean who doesn’t read the My Stuff with great detail? I do care what soap other people use - I’m crazy what can I say?).

Yet once I wrote them and told them that their cover (it had a few chocolate and cinnamon girls in it that month) was more diverse than their writing staff (George Wayne may or may not count - depending on the scandalous questions he asks).  They neither published my letter nor reached out to me. (On the contrary, Glamour magazine’s Editor in Chief responded to an email I wrote to them and Instyle published one of my commentaries on the endless bashing of Michelle Obama - FLOTUS who can do no right by those who look for only wrong).

So imagine my surprise when they did a spread on the Hamptons and found this black girl (she has a name: Christina Lewis - WSJ Hamptons reporter) in it…looking literary…in a house that’s hers with some of MY favorite flowers. What? Okay she inherited it but that makes it that much more interesting because most times we are just regulated to Martha’s Vineyard. Who knew there chocolate folks with old money in the Hamptons? The last time I went there (I was a guest of course) the only person I saw who looked like they were from my tribe was Russell Simmons himself. And he didn’t even blink at me. Despite us being the only chocolate people on the whole beach. Not even a curious “how did YOU get here” glance. Maybe I was acting wrong. I think I was supposed to BE there and not be there with my big huge old eyes.

Whatevs.

I hatelove you, Vanity Fair.

I suppose we should’ve seen this whole thing coming…the one where the President is always to blame for everything. I mean President Obama saw it coming. He did keep saying stuff like “the buck stops here” and “this is my job” but some of us really didn’t understand what that meant until the weird complaints started coming in. You know…like the death threats from so-called Christians. The impatience from those who have been fighting decades long battles and had expectations that there would be a magic wand waved and all our problems would disappear. Majority of the country who hadn’t pretended to read the constitution since they were in American History class, now reciting bits and pieces to fit their agenda. The ones who forgot this is a democracy and we have other people in government who are responsible for their jobs and that the President doesn’t do EVERYTHING. I mean we’ve never expected the President to do EVERYTHING before so why now?

It’s a blessing and a curse to have a  historic President. On one hand, we’ve done something we’ve never done before. On the other, we are now doing everything we did before and worse (economically, socially, culturally - we should come up with new deadly sins) and expect one person to wipe up after us.

Today I’m annoyed because people are pissed at Obama for coming to LA and making traffic bad. Really? Traffic in LA is always bad and none of the local politicians seemed to ever care. If we had a city where things on the road ran smoothly, the whole world wouldn’t collapse because Olympic is shut down. Now I know the Secret Service is part of this ring (and they have a helluva job guarding a historic President given there are people who aren’t happy about his skin color in 2010 - real talk). But how come nobody asks Villagrosa to clean up the HORRIBLE traffic on a daily basis? How come we never find out about the protests that close off streets until we are in the middle of them (I mean I’ve learned more about the Armenian Genocide sitting on Wilshire than I ever did in school and don’t even get me started on the Day without Latinos)? How come the Hollywood Bowl area is a always a clusterfuck no matter which way you go since they hold the lights so people can go stack park their cars for $20?

All this has made me read the news less or get soundbite news. I can’t stand how we present actual facts nowadays. There’s always a sly twist, an unsubstantiated tangent, a rash process of judgment, a disregard for humanity. There is no news anymore. There’s just tone - a sarcastic tone, an angry tone, a defensive tone, a judgmental tone…we’re going so fast that we can’t even hear ourselves anymore. I suppose if I was more tuned in, I would find all of this fascinating but I don’t. I find it exhausting. I’m tuning out.

My blood boils a bit when I hear people being so upset with Lebron James as though he literally stole the check out of their mailbox. People from wackalicious Charles Barkley (who NEVER got a ring by the way) to, well, me, have an opinion about how Lebron should have handled his career. Key word HIS career. Barkley, Jordan, etc all say they would have never done what Lebron did (and by “did” let’s separate the HOW from the WHAT). Times were different back then, old timers. Nobody had to live in Cleveland to make their way. I’m not a Cleveland basher but having family from there (so thus, visiting a few more times than I wanted to), I can say that it is NOWHERE near my top choices to live. It’s around where Philly is but Philly has The Roots so I wouldn’t be TOO devastated in Philly.  For Jordan and his years of being off the rader before being the demi-god he turned into, he could do it in fancy Chi-town with all its jazz, good food, metro people, and a budding youngish Oprah who was smashing Phil Donahue in the ratings. Something to do, in other words. Barkley had some nice weather. Bird had Boston where he fit right in, being vanilla and all (If I was vanilla, Boston might be a nicer place for me too). I won’t even get into Magic. I’m from Michigan so I know where Magic came from and I live in LA so I know where he landed. Dude, you had not one complaint. None of y’all tried to make it ago in Cleveland where you literally have to recreate fire.

I imagine it being heavy carrying an entire state’s hopes and dreams. And when people talk about Lebron quitting in the finals, I wonder if they ever bashed Kobe for doing the same (as a message to his teammates) or considered the fact that dud was just tired of being Whole Team Cavaliers.

Haters go hate but there’s nothing wrong with some young men trying to achieve their goals. They outsmarted some rich team owners who sometimes act above the law and they got theirs. Nobody took a check out of your mailbox so fall back and stop taking it personally. I can’t wait to see how many of y’all are camped in front of the tv waching Heat games.

(Please note, this post is heavily influenced by the emotionality of PMS - it’s real)

This weekend, sparked by a couple of events, made me aware that times in our lives are like cities we live in for a time and the move on through. I was remembering people that I used to be

so close to and how heavily dependent (or so I thought) my life was on my relationship with them - friends, friends close as family, etc. This isn’t about missing or regret because neither of those feelings came up. This is more about realizing that I’ve grown as a human being beyond anything that I could’ve imagined for myself. Think expansion more than being “better off”. I’ve been able to look back at my old self and see events and relationships that served a specific purposes and been able to put them in their appropriate photo album.

Life really does feel like a journey lately.

I’m remembering people like sights to visit on a vacation. I’m remembering how once seeming large events are now put into perspective and letting them fade into the scenery. It’s kind of nice to realize that you don’t need to grasp on to people as you if they would leave if you let go. Sometimes it’s good to let go so you can let yourself go and you can expand.

It’s funny to feel or realize that you have friends in your life who are moving in a direction that you’re not going into. And it’s okay. I feel like at the end of the day/month/year/decade, maybe you can pow wow about two different experiences and share.

This post is so vague and esoteric - internal - what a welcome back from a long break of blogging. But it’s necessary for me anyways to document for what used to be years’ long guilt of not going above and beyond to stay in touch with certain old friends. I’m letting myself be okay with doing what I can and allowing life to charter on.

I feel grown. Deep.

Anyways, this to send love to all of those whom I never talk to but used to regularly. I hope life is whipping great joys up like a cotton candy machine!