Reality Stinks, so grab a sponge and a mop!!

Has reality gotten so bad that we try and cover it up? Has reality become so rotten and spoiled that we’d sooner forget it exists than to confront it head on and do something to make it smell fresh again?

I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist. And truth of the matter is, right now, reality ain’t all that pleasant to deal with. I mean, I’m speaking in generalities, of course, but from a world perspective, shit has gone awry.

And again, that’s not the problem for me. The problem for me comes when people would rather say it’s not bad, when it is bad, rather than admit to what reality is really showing us. It disappoints me and it makes me upset. Bottom line is, I’m tired of people trying to paint red roses with shit-colored paint. Have you ever seen a shit-colored rose? If you did, would you say, “Ohhhhh, it’s a rose. I love roses no matter what they look like or what they smell like.”

People, I’m just trying to open our eyes to the fact that there are problems. And problems don’t go away unless you confront them. We have a stagnant government that deals in lies, corruption and misappropriation of power. We have an ecosystem crumbling before our very eyes. Technology is making us weaker at face-to-face interactions with one another. So we address our people like they’re message boxes on a computer screen. We get angered when people cannot respond to us at breakneck broadband speeds. And nations are acting as if toleration is the lowest priority on their agendas. How long have we known that there are religious and cultural differences now? Yet we fight like rabid dogs when it comes to proving religious or cultural dominance over what should represent our adversaries.

How appropriate was it then, and how appropriate would it be now, if just like Larry Fishburne did back in Spike Lee’s School Daze, I ran outside and screamed at the top of my lungs, “WAKE UP!!!!”

An introduction. . .

When I was about 11 years old, I can remember sitting up in my bedroom watching the pre-game musings of a Mike Tyson fight. Growing up in Brooklyn, Mike Tyson was everything to us. More than basketball, more than baseball, more than football, he represented the truest of sports to us Brooklynites. Here was a man paid millions of dollars to physically replicate the daily angst and mental battles of blacks in Brooklyn. And he would win every time. We never watched those fights to see IF he'd win, we watched them to see how fast. And with each victory, if only for a moment, all the people in all the Brooklyn ghettos stopped feeling poor, hopeless and defenseless. Iron Mike was one of the first to put Brooklyn on the map. Yes, Mike Tyson was a fighter. . .He was our fighter.

Well, I digress a bit, because actually, this story is not about Iron Mike. In fact, quite the contrary of this young, short, well-faded, unsophisticated black male bull of a fighter was his opposite. An older, tall, salt and peppered afro'd, charming black male businessman named Don King. Growing up in Brooklyn, you were taught not to like Don King. He dressed too nice and he talked too fast, a far cry from a Mike Tyson who was noted for going into the ring with a cutup terrycloth slung over his shoulders and black boots with no socks and spoke just like us. Our hero!!!

That afternoon, Don King was being interviewed on regular television. To allow you to understand how profound this interview was to me, Here I am almost 19 years later and I still can recall it. Mr. King was asked a question about what makes him such a successful entrepreneur. King replied that as a child, he was told, and I quote, "If you light yourself on fire, the whole world will come see you burn."

"If you light yourself on fire, the whole world will come see you burn." I remember feeling so enlightened by this statement that I ran to my mother's typewriter and reached under the stand where we had a package of blank white typing paper and took out one piece to write on. I grabbed my book on marine biology that had the hard sturdy cover and placed it on my lap. I steadied my pen in my unsteady, 85% of the time illegible, left hand and began to write out that quote in block letters. At the end of the quote, I included the author's name. Next, I took 4 pieces of tape and pasted this piece of paper on the wall next to my bed, roughly a foot and a half above the bed's surface. It would become my inspiration, my mantra.

Up until this very day, in times of my most apathetic and sullen moments, I always reflect on that statement. It tells me to lift myself up and be strong for all others, no matter who or whom "others" may be. Ladies and gentlemen, I have many thoughts. Many thoughts at once. . .many thoughts all day long. And I aim to share them with you. Sometimes it might be prose, sometimes it might be in poetry. It will always be me.

I entreat you to SIT and hear me out every now and again. Add your impressions and nuggets of information when the spirit hits you. Though I've never been much for pyrotechnics, I will do my best to spark that fire, Don King, spoke of and be a beacon of light to topics hopefully we all think about.

Welcome to my Stalks of Incandescent Thoughts. . .welcome to me.