Category: Me Myself&I

I quite often think about Katt Williams. These days, I do a little bit more than usual.

Do you know that this dude has 6 adopted children? S I X. When people think that he’s a crazy lunatic, I wonder how does he still have his eight children with him. The answer is that he’s probably not a crazy lunatic at all. You have to be immaculate to be a single black man raising six adopted children.

I wonder how he teaches his kids. What does he teach them? I guess they’re all black. How does it feel to have a dad like him? Is cursing OK when it feels like it is? What about women who come over? What does he tell his kids when answering their questions about his dates, and women in general? Any connection with the biological families left for those kids?

I have so many questions.

The other angle is his life on the road. This man has probably driven a million miles across this giant country called the US or America. Katt Williams has been touring a hundred nights a year—every year—for the past 15 years, give or take. I feel like he knows the temperature of that country better than anyone else, by far.

But also, can you imagine the number of stories this man has? I can’t imagine the craziest shit he’s been through from most hilarious to straight up macabre. It could be ten seasons of a show and I wouldn’t be surprised.

So between his adoptive experience, his knowledge of the country and his touring stories, I feel like I would talk and listen to him for weeks. We all have time right now. Hit me up sir.

In the past week I’ve had a few calls with my French friends. I hadn’t seen or heard them in six years.

I’m trying to analyze. How casual and absolutely overwhelming that is. I call, the camera shows that I’m in some decent light, I wait for them. They show up, exactly as I remember them. Same voice. Same living room. Same body language. Same shit going on there. Exciting and disappointing altogether.

It’s not soothing. It feels harsh, like walking through a parking lot in a heat wave. For 45 minutes I have this window into which we dive in, where time doesn’t exist, and then we close it. And now emptiness takes over.

I don’t think the human psyche was prepared for that kind of thing. You’re not supposed to see someone you know by heart on video chat, after a long hiatus before closing the window like it’s just another window. Of course it feels like something wrong happened. Was that real? Do we really know each other? Am I fucking dreaming?

This morning it went from life on Crenshaw to finishing some music to video call with coworkers to news about Crenshaw to texting my dude who’s sending me his latest music (but rarely answers when I ask him how he’s doing, yeah I’m snitching bruh idc) to video call with my cousin who lives in “our” little village in France. She’s telling me about my foster family there and how where she works, a nursing home, they recently lost more than half of their patients. Nothing special, right?

I hang up, take all the news in. The human cost. What are families? Communities? The never-ending intricacies of *it all*. And now I’m exhausted. It’s a lot of emotions.

Let’s just say that I looked and sounded like that cat today.

Last week was a turn of events or it feels like it.

The sun has been strong and high. People are out. Masks on or off, I can sense that people are completely fed up. By the ‘rona, by the media. We can’t stand nor trust those news, those press conferences. Sometimes those doctors. People need their money or at least some freedom in this country. It’s tense.

I heard sirens the entirety of Sunday. Arson is happening. DJ sets are blasting through the hood. A smoky mix of Luniz and BBQ was floating around my block on Saturday. Then Go-Go with 9th Wonder. It was nice.

I learned that my grandma is in a COVID-infected nursing home. She’s okay for now. I don’t know for how long. My brain is starting to gather memories and souvenirs and I’m not fucking ready for that at all. My mom is losing it a bit and being more and more careless with her behavior. I can tell with the way she’s agitated on video calls. One of my bff is in a mental health hospital, after some horrible heartbreak. I try to lift them all up by looking good, smiling and being positively full of energy. It’s not easy.

Music heals me so much. I don’t think I would be able to do what I’m doing without it. Take Heatwave’s Always and Forever that just came out of my speakers. It’s like aural cuddles and kisses on the cheeks.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t even look at the COVID tracker without my brain checking out immediately.

Last week was pretty productive. I solved some quirky JavaScript issue in the audio player I’m going to use on my website and that felt really good. It’s going to be nice.

I’m lucky that I can watch The Last Dance on ESPN when it comes on on Sundays. The first two episodes touched nerves, triggered memories. Great documentary.

Hot takes are all over the place. What fascinates me in those 90s Bulls is how fragile the balance was for them to win it all, and that everyone played a role and did better than they thought they would.

The best example of this is Scottie Pippen. MJ is drafted by the Bulls and he demands a better Center. He argues that this is what he needs: a big to protect him and to feed the ball to. It makes sense. The Bulls organization however, thinks differently: they invested in Michael Jordan who is doing all the scoring. They are scared to death to lose him to injuries and whatnot. It’s big money. The Bulls are not the Bulls yet.

Instead of fulfilling MJ’s wish, they find Scottie in the middle of Arkansas. So The Bulls organization didn’t listen to their superstar, went all the way down to nowhere to find a very raw, athletic and promising Forward. Obviously, Michael wasn’t happy but quickly changed his mind thanks to Scottie’s ability to follow and keep up with #23.

That’s amazing to me. This all thing could have gone wrong in a million ways! No Scottie, no six titles. No Steve Kerr’s suffocating defense, no six titles. No Horace Grant in the paint, no six titles. No Rodman with his 15mn, 15 rebounds stats, no six titles. Not a single team wanted Phil Jackson –deemed too weird- in the NBA, The Bulls organization gave him his job and the rest is History. It could have gone wrong in a million ways.

Despite the drama, they all together hold up to get those championships. When the Bulls got Rodman, I thought the team’s chemistry would just explode and that they would not even make the playoffs. Was I wrong. Look at Toni Kukoc going 2/30 from three in the 1996 playoffs, and imagine how MJ felt about the Bulls drafting that dude. He stayed on the team, hit some big shots later on and they won three titles in a row. Trust is crucial.

That’s the legacy that I wanted to see being broken with the Warriors. I wanted them to go for 4 titles in a row, not to celebrate basketball hegemony, but because it would really have proved that they’re a complete, strong ass team. Despite an absurdly great roster, they couldn’t do it. Trust was an issue.

It makes the two Bulls 3-peat even more unreal. And the perfect score –6 finals, 6 rings– absolutely nuts.

Thanks to a lot of talent, a lot of comprehension, and a whole lot of luck. It is inspiring.

I remember this lady, she was always sitting down on a computer facing me and would often blush when I would say hi. A lefty, something I couldn’t miss.

She would always look very focused on what looked like job searches, taking notes etc.

She also had something going: she was mixed race, Black and Latina, very light skinned, very thick. But her son was this little black toddler and her dude was this skinny white people Jesus looking man. As rare as it was to see them all together, seeing them gave you that “uh, what’s going on here? Who’s kidnapping who?” vibe. Just funny and cute.

One day, I saw her in the street walking toward a brand new silver Mercedes. Doing the “t-you t-you” with her key fob, opening the driver’s door. She saw me passing on my bike, we smiled at each other. She seemed at peace.

I never saw her ever again.

Sometimes when I’m nearby the same block I think “you go, girl”.

It was right at the start of this pandemic. For some reason, I felt like I should give him and his boo some good food. Not a dollar. Not fruit, cereal bar, candy. Not even Popeye’s. A full, healthy meal.

As it was raining a lot these days, I knew they needed warm food. So I went to that local joint and bought some soul food for them. Four wings, beans rice and greens. Two fat plates. It wasn’t cheap but it was worth it.

I swing by their spot in the middle of the afternoon. I put the container down at her feet. She’s almost in denial about the smell. He’s gone doing whatever he does but comes back as I’m leaving.

He starts smiling when he opens up his container. They thank me with this little shame on their faces that I don’t pay no mind to. I smile back and nod.

The next day, it’s pouring pouring. I’m a bit nuts to go shoot my basketball but it’s just like brushing my teeth at this point. They’re dead asleep on the concrete, sheltered by a small cantilevered roof. He knows I’ll be there like I always am or he hears my keys. Either way, he manages to rise out of his pile of blankets to wave at me and give me that look that says “son you don’t even know right now how much we needed this shit”. I’ll never forget those thankful, grateful, teary eyes. They were loud.

The third day, it’s sunny again. As I walk through the park, I see them sitting in their little camp, conversation is flowing, they’re smiling and laughing. This is where It hit me.

The first day, they were surviving. Mad, uncomfortable, busy.

The second day, they were digesting. Big amount of food to process, rain, rest.

The third day, they’re living. They feel alright, they can now sit, talk and even joke.

And now it hits me again: as a metaphor for Life, I think I’m finishing that second day.

I keep thinking of how incredible the internet would be right now if we were doing what we’re doing, but semi-privately on personal servers. 100% personally owned content. Forever.

Imagine DJ D-NICE streaming from his own live thingy, easily promoting his sets and shows on his website (for the past 20 years) where you could buy his stuff easily while he would not be giving a 30% cut to anyone but himself.

Imagine all the journalists and sources of real life events, on some WordPress-like stuff, using their own photo galleries, widely available and shareable in a click regardless of where you are, what OS you’re running or how old your computer is.

Imagine that using the internet this way is so useful and spread out, that anyone trying to do something wrong/unethical would immediately be found out and chastised. Ethical hackers taking care of our systems. Original Posters would be respected across the world.

Imagine a single group chat or video chat protocol. And everyone can join from 2005 desktop to 2020 fridge.

Imagine how interesting things would be in our crazy, current times. How easy it would be to show up for each other, buy and sell stuff (every single irl store would have an online store). Share things a lot more freely (which means there would be more meaning in sharing those things) than under the scrutiny and stress of giant companies and dozens of technical/branded “solutions”. Communicating instead of performing.

Maybe there would be a whole lot less noise online, and a lot more folks doing the right thing offline. Maybe that would be good.

I like to dream. I love to visualize.

This is:

1. The Black Men Network Protocol (BMNP) handshake.

2. A social commentary on the current and past 2020 events.

3. BoFem