I’ve been getting some e-mails and messages asking why I haven’t been adding much new content to the blog recently. Good question. To be for real for real, I just haven’t been all that into THAT REAL SCHITT recently. Don’t let me be misunderstood, I still love the real just as much as always. But what seems to happens to us as we get older is that… well, life happens. REALLY real schitt. So as much as we may still enjoy some of the things that consumed our lives earlier on, we just don’t have as much time for that schitt as it gets later. Which is why you have all these millions of people who once rode hard for that boom bap style Hip Hop, and suddenly, presto- their old azzes done seemingly vanished. They’re still around and they still like the real schitt, but they’re too busy trying to pay bills and battling with baby mamas and running from the cops after violating probation for the 3rd time and doing stints in rehab and whatever the hell else they’re doing. Like I said, really real schitt.
Luckily I have managed to navigate through my own life fairly successfully, so my worst drama is stuff like going to parent / teacher conferences. And even those are pretty drama free since both of my kids are A students and very well behaved (Daddy Phill accepts nothing less, believe dat). But still, raising children and maintaining a household is serious work- both time consuming and tiring. Joyful and rewarding work, no doubt, but work nonetheless. And although I’d like to tell you I have the stamina of gorillas injected with the strength of eighty midgets, the truth is that ol’ boy gets worn out on a daily basis and honestly has no desire to stay up until three in the morning trying to put together halfway decent THAT REAL SCHITT posts on the regular. So this is what it is- I’m not gonna shut down the blog or anything, but I’m just gonna post something whenever I can. It’s probably gonna continue to be infrequent, but check back here every now and then and see if there’s any new content. Or I guess you can subscribe to one of those RSS feeds or something? I don’t even know how that schitt works. But whatever… I’ll be back from time to time, so keep checking in.
This has actually been a pretty great week for me- Wednesday night the Phillies won the world championship, which was the first here in Philly in 25 years. Went to the parade yesterday- looked like everybody in the whole damn CITY was downtown representing! Took my youngin’s down to be a part of history, and even though we had to break out early due to my little girl being slightly horrified by the drunken celebrating and public urinating that was going on all around us, it was a GREAT thing to see my city revelling after so many years of being denied that ultimate prize. Like Chase Utley said at the celebration : “World champions. World F*CKIN’ champions!” It was a pretty perfect day.
This past Tuesday I went to a rally at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania for the man who will be the next president of the United States, my homeboy Barack Obama. I’d like to say that this was also a perfect day, but for most of it it was HORRIBLE. I left my house at about 6:30 am and it was raining, but I was expecting it to be a light rain that would end later in the morning and the temperature would be mild (I have tvs all over my house that I could’ve watched the weather report on, plus radios, internet access and even the weather widget on my iphone- yet for some reason I had no real information on what the weather would be, just my own uneducated guesswork). I bounce out the house rockin’ the ‘Lo leather and had a little $5 umbrella in the whip in case I needed it. BAD MOVE. I get out to the rally and the line to get into the event is long as F*CK. The morning chill turned into a bitter coldness. The light rain turned into a cotdamn downpour. And the wind is whipping right the f*ck THROUGH us. But I’m here now, so I’m gonna try to tough it out. Another bad move- I shoulda got the f*ck back into my ride and took my azz the hell back to Philly as soon as I saw how that line went around the block and down a few more blocks.
The next hint that this was not someplace I wanted to be at was when I learned while standing in line that this was going to be an outdoor rally- I was under the impression it this was gonna be held indoors (the main reason why I dressed rather lightly). And that they were not going to allow umbrellas at the event. WTF??? x 1,000. By this time I’d been in line for about 90 minutes and was soaked, even with the $5 umbrella. The cold azz wind had me frozen to the bone. Man, this was some bad schitt! I’m telling you, as a dude who grew up through some arctic-like winters in Connecticut with no heat in the house, this was possibly the worst weather-related experience I ever had to endure. But there was no turning back at this point- I’m already all f*cked up, so I might as well stay to see Barack so at least I won’t have gone through this bullschitt for nothing. My final indignation: seeking shelter in a cotdamn porta potty for the last 45 minutes before Obama hit the stage (and I tell you, thank God for that piss-closet, because I don’t think I would’ve made it standing out in that freezing torrential rain for another 45 minutes).
But believe me when I say this- once Barack Obama hit the stage (and early, thankfully) it made my whole ordeal worthwhile. Seriously. Not that he said anything new, but as a black man who’s grandmother used to tell him about her grandfather who was born in slavery (so we’re really not talking about very many generations ago), what’s going to happen this coming Tuesday is huge beyond anything I ever could’ve imagined. So I can’t even tell you how important it was for me to see this man in person. And look, Barack is no messiah… who knows how things are gonna go for the next four years. He’s not Martin or Malcolm either- he’s still a politician and he plays some of the same games that every politician has to play. But I do believe that he’s a good man who is gonna do everything in his power to get this f*cked up situation that America is in right again. It’s not even close that he’s America’s best hope. And I think that’s the word right there for me- HOPE. That’s something that most black people in this country have never had, and there’s no way that you can improve your life, your family, your community, your condition if you don’t have that four letter word. On Tuesday America is gonna elect a black President Of The United States- how can you NOT have hope once that happens? Everybody get out there and vote and let’s ensure that it goes down. So I f*cked up my ‘Lo leather… what the hell, it was time to upgrade anyway. It was worth it.
MUSIC TO VOTE TO: CJ – Young Politics (excuse the lo-fi MySpace mp3s… if anybody has this in higher quality please holla at a pimp. And if you have the shelved CJ album PRETTY please holla at a pimp… I really need that.)
THAT REAL SCHITT 