Books
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Tuesday 5:27pm 8Jan07

Recommended a book to a girl friend whose mother passed away a couple days after Christmas. The book is Motherless Daughters written by Hope Edelman. The only book I've ever come across that focuses on the impact of a daughter losing her mother. I mention it here for any women who may be reading who have also lost their mothers.

You become really sensitive to other women who lose their mothers after you've lost yours.

I still haven't decided what I have to say about 50 cent and his new venture. There was an article in the The Globe and Mail yesterday about his G-Unit Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster's Pocket Books/ MTV Books. Reading the essays in bell hooks Remembered Rapture and her comments about the industry catering to mediocrity especially in the black community, do I even want to touch this with a ten foot pole? Do I want to get the pole dirty?

And there's the part that mentions that 50 cent wants to raise literacy levels of young male blacks. sigh! But what grade level do these books cater to, I wonder. 50 cent gets a top billing and a co-author credit on all the books in his G-Unit imprint despite not having written a word. He brainstorms ideas with the writers and then sends them off to do the real work of writing.

Yeah, okay, he's trying to be a role model, as wobbly as that is. He's trying to inspire kids to believe that with a little hard work they too can make beaucoup bucks. He's a brand. Good for him, more power to him, really but fuck his shit is insulting, isn't it?

Could you just imagine the meetings? "So Mister Fiddy, or shall I call you Mister cent? We'll put your name above the author's name on every book that comes out under your imprint. We'll make millions. No sir, you don't have to write a word. Just show up at the book launch and that will motivate your non-reading people to pull out their pennies and buy YOUR books. Of course you can offer ideas to the writers, having an idea is the same thing as writing after all."

50 cent is a fucking hero! He's showing kids that you can be an author without ever having written a word (spitting in the face of all starving artists everywhere). You can sit on the shoulders of your own people and get them to write the stuff while you laugh all the way to the bank. Of course there is always someone that will agree to it in a misguided belief that this is a stepping stone to serious fiction. 50 wants to be a mogul and good for him, I have nothing against that, but doesn't he see that this is no different than record companies pimping their artists talent and bitch slapping them when they ask for their fair share?

Yes kids, it's only bad when the white man does it to the black man. But when the black man does it to the black man (or woman) well, I guess that's enterprising.

Raising the level of literacy. Maybe in a few years Harvard will give you an honorary degree in literature, eh 50? You da fucking man!

EY

My Dream - to rescue animals
Topic: Inspiration


My black cat Saki used to kiss me full on the lips! If I had the land and the resources I would want to rescue animals. I couldn't let this article pass by. EY


Colombian nurses animals back to health

By INALDO PEREZ, Associated Press WriterSun Jan 7, 10:07 PM ET
Through the bars of his cage, an African lion named Jupiter stretches his giant paws around the neck of Ana Julia Torres and plants a kiss on her puckered lips.

It could be a kiss of gratitude: Since Jupiter was rescued six years ago from a life of abuse and malnutrition in a traveling circus, Torres has fed and nursed him back to health at her Villa Lorena shelter for injured and mistreated animals.

"Here we have animals that are lame, missing limbs, blind, cross-eyed, disabled," said Torres, 47, who relies on donations and her own modest teacher's salary to run the shelter in a poor neighborhood in the southern city of Cali. "They come to us malnourished, wounded, burned, stabbed, with gunshots."

Torres said her work rehabilitating animals began more than a decade ago when a friend gave her an owl that had been kept as a pet. Later, when she asked her students to bring their pets to school, she realized many families illegally kept wild fauna from Colombia's biologically diverse jungles in their homes.

The number of animals under her care grew, and today Jupiter is among 800 recovering creatures at Villa Lorena — from burned peacocks and limbless flamencos to blind monkeys and mutilated elephants.

Most of the animals are caged, though some, like iguanas, roam freely around the impeccably clean grounds enclosed by a 13-foot wall. Inside is a monument that the state governor dedicated in recognition of Torres' work.

Torres said many of the animals were rejected as infants by their parents in the wild or found abandoned on the streets of Cali, a city of 2 million.

Others were rescued from cruel treatment by owners. One mountain lion kept illegally as a pet had its two front legs cut off by its owner after it clawed a family member's face.

Torres said that of all the animals she has cared for, she is proudest of having rescued Yeyo, a now-deceased spider monkey who had suffered violent, drunken beatings at the hands of an alcoholic owner.

"The monkey would scream every time it was beaten, until one day the police came and found the wall covered in blood," she said.

Two veterinarians saved Yeyo from death, though it lost an eye and its teeth from the abuse. Yeyo remained terrified of people, cowering in the corner of the cage at the sound of footsteps, she said.

Torres said she opposes exhibiting animals in circuses and has therefore kept her shelter closed to the public.

"We want the animals to live in peace," Torres said. "All their life they were shown at circuses and shows — this is a paradise where they can finally rest."

Horrorscope
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
5:33pm Monday 8Jan07

It's ironic that the only part of my horoscope for January that comes true is the bad stuff. The romance? No of course not. Mind you I did swear off men for the time being anyway but you know the cosmos could send me a good one just cuz I deserve it. Nope?

No, the part about a close friend in crisis, that's the part that comes true. Now I know I said that if anyone was in crisis they should call a therapist but I didn't mean everyone. I meant mostly every one.

My best friend is the one that understood the inner me almost immediately. He always knew how to console me through my crying years. He was the one that told everyone, "she's not a crybaby, she's sensitive." We've been best friends for close to 30 years, a life time really. Although we live in different cities, I never feel far away from him. Until today.

I feel too far when I know he could use the comfort of seeing my face and appreciating my listening ability and my comfort with silence, if that's what is needed. I feel too far away when I know that he doesn't open up to just anyone and it's me that he thinks to call when he's going through what he's going through. I feel too far away when I know that he's my 911 person, he's the person that I would call if I knew I was going to die and I had one last chance to tell someone I loved them. As so many had to when they faced the tragedy and horror of September 11th.

I told someone recently that I didn't have anyone who would be devastated if something happened to me but I wasn't thinking. He would be devastated if something happened to me. And I can't even contemplate anything ever happening to him.

So tonight I pray for his emotional well-being. Tonight I pray to whatever power is up there to help me to transport my energy to my best friend for comfort. Tonight I pray for a way for him to feel my presence blanket him as if I were there holding him, consoling him, giving him the safe place that he's always readily and easily given to me when I've needed it.

I don't love anyone as much as I love you.

EY

Flavor of Love
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Sunday 8:11pm 7Jan07

We've got one more episode left. Can I just say that I hope things work out with Flavor Flav and his pick because if there's a Flavor of Love 3 I may have to fling myself out a window. Especially if he brings New York back for a third time. Because you know she's just stupid enough to come back and fuck him one more time and be sent off to the land of humiliation with her mother ridiculing her the whole time.

This episode belonged to New York's mother, "Miss Michelle." Boy oh boy, it ain't right to have a mother like her. The best part is that she is right about not wanting her daughter with Flav because he's Flav and he has six children ( can we all sing the baby mama song?) Oh yeah they haven't written the song yet! Why hasn't anybody? I'll have to talk to my cousin who has his fair share of baby mama's hisself.

Miss Michelle (as Flav called her which in the black community is a huge sign of respect) walked in the house and started from the moment she got in there, pushing skinny Flav around causing New York to do her melodramatic fake crying. And it went down hill from there.

Never in my life have I watched someone confess that they had a limited time to live because they had a condition (a rare condition, so rare that it hasn't been named) and laughed with my head back and my mouth wide open. That's just not right.

And when Miss Michelle acquiesced to hugging Flav and her weave got caught on Flav's crown and she cried, "Kill me now, kill me now!"
It's not even right to have so many laughs in one hour. Can laughing really be this good for me?

I'm long since past my shame of admitting that I watch Flavor of Love. It makes me laugh way too much to feel shame or it makes me laugh past my shame.

I have to give my props to Flavor Flav though for tolerating Miss Michelle and never losing it on her when he could so easily have done so. I have to give him props for not eating for two hours when his ass was hungry. Maybe he was drunk by the thought of his life being forever like that if he chooses New York, hungry eating cold food cuz she's still upstairs combing her thin ass weave and smoking ten cigarettes.
Girlfriend, either cut off that shit you bought or get a better weave. When it's got the consistency of a mullet, it gots to go!

EY

Jamming The Tunes
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Excuse Me Miss - Jay Z
Sunday 7Jan07 2:46pm

I'm writing and stopping a little bit for a singing for my neighbours moment. I was killing Beyonce's irreplaceable strong. I half expected a neighbour to knock on the door and say, "Play another song!"
I flipped through a few other songs singing at the top of my lungs like I was a performer or something.
I'm now stuck on Excuse me miss. I love that tune. Between Pharrell with his smooth vocals, "so contagious, I can't take it, help my baby, let's just make it." Oh and the way he says Excuse me, DAMN!

I was never into Jay Z. I seemed to miss the boat on that one. Of course I don't listen to radio nor watch BET so it's any wonder I missed most of his stuff. But Much Music played this video strong and there was something about him that did it for me.

He's not good looking on a first take, for sure, but you watch him in that video all VIPed up in his expensive suit with his head down as he sneaks a peek over at Miss on the elevator and it's that calm and sexy knowledgeable look. He knows if he comes on too strong he comes across as another perverted player hitting on a good looking woman.
And his words, "you gotta throw on some fine linens for this one."
"play spades with the cards up -- all trust!"
"he's no item, please don't like him, he don't wife em, he one nights em."
Nothing like a man that thinks about what he wants to say and says it with flair.
By the end of that video I'm thinking, I'd go out with him. ha ha!

I love songs that makes me imagine. Lyrics that make me wish that I'd written them. And music that makes me groove.

EY