Jackson G. Tickle Enterprises Presents…Panama’s Propositions

[***Though this has nothing to really do with my post, the concept is still the same. Go check out a post about why black people can't win at Maverick's spot. It's long as all hell, but definitely worthy of reading.***]

I’m broke.

That’s a fact jack. One would think that having a middle class waged job and living in an upper lower class environment (which only means that we don’t do Section would lend itself to me being pretty damn well off. But unfortunately the money Gods and the Dalai Lama do not see it fit for me to just be rich right now.

Now this is not broke in the sense of having no food, but of the food not being steak and scrimps, just food that’ll do. Unless of course you go to the Left Bank in Washington, DC, and order some gotdamn shrimp and they bring you back 3 measly ass scrimps which probably didn’t come from no Gulf as advertised but really came from a pond in a Golf Course up the street.

[***Sidenote: This is something I've always wondered: Why in the shit is it that the more you spend on food, the less you get? Why do rich people spend $30 dollars on a plate of food to get one asparagus spear?? This makes no damn sense to me. You got to TGI Tuesdays (yes bitch I know) and order some chicken fingers and I'll be gotdamned if you don't get enough to fill you up, but if you go to Le Holeinawall in some fanch schmancy place and order some chicken fingers they'll bring you one chicken stub, some rice, and stick an umbrella in the parsley which really doesn't belong with chicken fingeresque foods but still, rich muhfuckas love parsley. Shit tastes like creek water and ass monkeys. I'm just sharing.***]

So in my brokeness, I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday who was telling me about her friend who took a year off after graduating from college to study for the LSAT with no plans on working. Oh yeah, she also just up and moved to a new city, her parents bought her a new house, and bought her a brand new $70,000 vehicle.

Just because.

Now to me, that’s some white shit (her friend is a black girl). It’s up there with taking a year off to scale the Alps and go windsurfing in the South Pacific on the list of shit white people can do because they can afford to whereas I’d just go to Barnes & Nobles, read an LSAT book there, get kicked out, then go take the test when it was offered, all the while working a full time job because I can’t afford to take a year off.

Remember, I’m broke.

[***DISCLAIMER: This goes out to all you people who are going to get your draws/panties in a bunch and say something stupid like, "white shit?, so what is black shit? It's ignorant to say something like that because there is no such thing as white stuff!" Hmm...fuck you and die. You know what the fuck I'm talking about and if you don't most of your friends are probably white and you think Chingy and Nelly are what rap music really is, or are some ignant muhfucka who I'd just never actually want to speak to in real life. So, do me, your momma, that bum on the corner, and yourself a favor and just die.***]

So I got to thinking. Being as I’ve been REALLY broke before, I’ve had to make a decision between say eating and putting gas in my car. Or say, buying groceries, or paying a bill…at all. I’ve had my power shut down before for a few days cuz a brutha was delinquent like shit. As in, they called my grandmother trying to find me to collect. How they made THAT connection I’ll NEVER know. Which reminds me of something.

STRAIGHT UP NIGGA SHIT: So, I was late like hell on paying bills…something like three months. Was I worried?? Nope, the bill wasn’t in my name (nor my grandmother’s). Is that fucked up? Well yes it is. Thank you.

So this young ladies ability to take a year off from going back to school or working got me to thinking about something.

What exactly are the problems that rich people have?

And ummm…can I try that shit for a week??

You see, being somebody’s who been pretty damn broke, I recognize broke ass people problems all the time. Can’t pay bills on time, not enough to eat, can’t get gas, etc. You might be working but still aren’t making ends meet. Basically, that sucks monkey nuts. But what do rich people problems look like? I racked my brain for a good hour trying to figure out what problems rich people have. Nearly all of my problems are tied to money. If I was rich, I wouldn’t have those same issues.

In my fantasy world, I envision rich people having problems trying to decipher who really cares about them and who’s just there for the money. Then I realized that’s a formerly broke nigga problem. Constantly rich people don’t have that same problem because well, they live around other rich people. But that’s about as far as I got.

So what the shit is a rich person problem? It ain’t bills, it ain’t eating, it ain’t having a place to sleep at night. You can’t say drug use because you do that to yourself…at first. After that first hit of coca-in-e, you’re pretty much a sucker for love.

In the immortal words of the late great Rick James, “cocaine is a helluva drug.”

(Speaking of which, Chappelle’s Show Second Season is out on DVD now. Go cop that and get prepared for Round Two of white boys gone wild yelling “I’m Rick James bitch” out of cab windows at 4am after a night of drinking.)

If I was rich, I’d be smiling a lot. I usually smile when things are good. There are a lot of folks who aren’t smiling in America. You know why…cuz they don’t have shit to smile about. Because they’re broke. Hell, it might cost money to smile. You might fuck around and get your face stuck in a smile and then you have to pay to get your face unsmiled. Then you’re extra broke because health care ain’t no joke.

In my fantasy world, I can’t understand why any rich person wouldn’t wake up everyday and say, “damn it feels good to be a gangster…er…me. I’m rich, other people aren’t, life is good.” I know everybody has problems in life, but I just can’t fathom the idea of problems that rich people might have across the board. In my mind, the grass is greener on that side of the fence and the shit aint artificially colored either. It’s nice, green, lush, lovely grass.

Over here on the broke side, we got dirt clumps mixed with what used to be grass and used condom wrappers which somehow always end up on sidewalks.

I could be wrong, but it must be nice to be rich…cuz being broke is a bitch.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaashington, DC.

Home of cooked crack.

Home of the brave and the Washington Nationals.

Home of…

…drunk ass bloggers with jobs that require them to not place pictures of themselves on websites for fear of clearance revokation, questions about their morals, and basically cuz they’d like to stay employed.

Now I have to say this upfront. I don’t really remember shit. I had a little bit too much to drink…just a tad. I also hadn’t eaten shit since noon and proceeded to order some gotdamn shrimp at the restaurant we were at.

I got 3.

But I’ll get to that later. Who was there you ask?? No…you didn’t?? Well, I’ll tell you anyway.
So of course we have both the infamous Brutha Code and Kajuana AKA The Sexiopian up in hur with friend. We have the First Fiancee of the Blog World, Edwige; potentially one of the funniest Negroes in America in Leon who gets dry humped on Metro trains (Green Line Fo’ Life). We have the most talkative Negro on earth in Will, who became the executive producer/manager of the cast of folks (I’ll get to that later), Xquizzyt and Rhapsodi, some of the latest Negroes on Earth, and we have BK’s finest, Cee and her sister.

And of course there is me, Panama the Amazing Blackin’ Out Negro and my boy.

Yes I blacked the hell out.

Word to the wise kids…if you are going to drink (a lot), make sure you eat first. Don’t wait 7 hours from lunch to eat 3 shrimp. It won’t help at all.

I promise you.

Honestly, that is about as much as I remember. Some martini’s and a French Connection later. The kid’s chin was touching his chest (shout outs to Kajuana for so accurately describing my condition). Here is what I do remember.

-Everybody was cool as all hell. I’ve hung out with some of the folks before but it was great to meet folks whose sites I read daily. Especially X who be claiming (love that Ebonics) that I don’t comment enough on her site. If I remember correctly, she’s a sweetheart.

-We were the cast of a new show on BET called Homiez. I (think)used this fact to get a drink from some chicks at the bar. My name on the show, I. Chase Underwood. Will was the executive producer and apparently got folks free drinks…apparently I was sleeping. Not sure if anybody managed to convince anybody else we were famous. Hmm…it’s BET. Famous might be a stretch.

-BruthaCode laying out one of the best damn theories for gun violence down South that I’ve EVER heard. Basically, niggas from NY are responsible for everything that’s wrong EVERYWHERE.

-I sucked on some shrimp for what seemed like an hour. I’m just not sure I need or should say anything else about that becuase that sentence alone sounds bad. HOWEVER, if you only got three shrimp, you’d have done the same thing.

-I might be making this up…but I’m sure there was pointing and laughing.

-Stumbling.

-Laying on somebody’s shoulder. It was a good shoulder I’m just not sure who it belonged too. I’d like to know who’s shoulder that was. Thank you.

-Broken glass everywhere…

…”if it ain’t about the money Puff I just don’t care.”

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that line.

[***Sidenote: Speaking of Puffy, I've been trying to find a new suit and came across a damn Sean John Exclusive suit that just spoke to me. It said..."panama, panama." It pains me that I'm about to spend money on something crafted by a man who wears a Mohawk and gives the world Da Band. It was so bad I asked the man working at the Suit counter if he would have a moral dilemma if he wanted to buy a suit that Ozzy Osbourne's name was sewn into. Puzzled looks ensued.***]

Really, that’s about all I remember. Everybody else gave good accounts of stuff so if you want to know what things looked like to a non-drunk ass I’d say mosey on over to Cee’s spot, or X’s spot, or Edwige’s spot, or Rhap’s spot. Brutha Code was drunk and blacked out too, yet, he gives a quit humorous accounting.

All in all, we had a damn good time. According to Kajuana, I didn’t go hard on Friday night and because of this, I must relinquish one an “x” from my usage of word “sexxy”. However…

…I’m Panama Muhfuckin’ and I’m sexxier than you.

I ain’t givin’ up shit.

To everybody that was there…that was a damn good time. We must do it again sometime if only so I can get my “x” back from Kajuana.

DC Bloggers…we get down like Clinton in the West Wing.

I saw something so scary this weekend that I’m just not sure how to handle it. It rocked me to my core. It was so scary that I can’t even write a 1500 word post about it. In fact, it scared me 300wordor-less.

I was in New York on Saturday visiting friends. I was live from Bedford-Stuyvesant…hmm, I was with the livest one, my man Francis M.H. In fact, we were representin’ BK to the fullest.

That’s when it happened.

I saw white people…in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

On Fulton Avenue, chillin’.

At Kingston Avenue, whistlin’.

This might not mean much to some of you outside of New York City or Brooklyn for that matter. But picture this if you will…

…big ass black community. The hood so to speak. Actually, the “hood” hood.

The one you think of when black folks say the hood. Hmmm…kind of like the one that some black folks disown and refuse to return too.

Yeah…it’s like that.

And they’ve moved in.

WE’RE LOSING HARLEM ALREADY.

Bed-Stuy is the largest African-American community in America and home of the late great Notorious B.I.G. and the lady killer Mos Def.

I’m telling you, if we lose Bed-Stuy it’s only a matter of time before MLK Blvd in Yocity, Yostate, becomes George W. Bush Avenue.

I’m scared.

Hold me.

******

Check out We The Voices for some interesting articles about some interesting things. For instance, one writer explains why white folks need not rate black music. One writer discusses the problem with smaller bootied black women. Is it an epidemic?? Who knew they needed an interest group?? Would you be able to make it as a member of Destiny’s Child??? All things to think about…come on over…don’t be shy…we won’t bite…

…unless you ask!!!

******

And lest us not forget that if you’re in DC this weekend to come out to the Throwdown in Blogtown at the Left Bank in Adam’s Morgan, Washington, DC on this Friday, May 20, 2005. We are SO finna get gully.

[***DISCLAIMER: This post right here will offend the sensibilities of the poor righteous teachers who complain about every-damn-thing but do no-damn-thing. Sometimes, we are full of shit...yes myself included. So before you call me a Republican, Armstrong Williams, or Stanley Crouch...go kill yourself.***]

It has been said that controversy sells. Let’s see if this is true shall we? Yes, let’s.

I’m a Kevin Hill fan. It’s the show on UPN (Father forgive me but at least it isn’t BET where folks named Fatty Koo can get a chance…may God have mercy on us all) where Taye Diggs is the big shot New York lawyer and ladies’ man. It’s the one place in life where a 5′6″ grown ass black man can be anybody he wants to be and bag any woman he wants. Yes, television is where all your dreams can come true…unless you are T-Boz and couldn’t act your way out of a paper bag requiring me to always rewind your parts in the movie Belly just to see if you give some indication that you really meant to suck as much ass as you did. Like I said before, she’s living proof that failure is an option for some people.

I’ve already digressed, this could be a long day.

So one of the knocks on the show is that Taye Diggs’ character pretty much only dates flourescent skinned black women. This isn’t really true as I’ve done an episode by episode tally and he’s dated one chocolate skinned sister, a few brown bombers, and about 2 million light to flourescent women. Aside from the one time where he dated a white chick and all the references to white chicks he’s knocked down (which is Panama slang for “hittin’ the skinz” or “gettin’ the snappy nappy dugout”) he’s pretty much dating black women.

Well all of the complaining has forced me to look at a number of complaints that black people levy on a day to day basis though I’m going to mostly stick with examples from the media. And it’s all led me to one question:

Will anything ever be enough for black people or are we just content with being complainers?

Now, I’m about to ruffle some feathers.

My people, we complain to gotdamnned much. For instance, on Kevin Hill, he’s dating light skinned black women yet he’s still dating black women, right?? What the hell is the problem? Like I understand that everybody is an uproar because not enough dark skinned women are on television and though I can’t stand her, I agree that India.Arie got snubbed maybe in part due to her darker hued complexion. But shit, didn’t a black woman still win all of those Grammy’s???

It’s so comedic nowadays to hear people’s complaints. For instance (and we’ll just act like the overly dumb and clearly stereotypic McDonald’s on BET commercials don’t exist), we complain about commercials left and right. Why does the black family got to be making Kool-Aid? Nigga, cuz we fuckin’ drink Kool-Aid. It’s a staple of the black community. Get over it. I like Kool-Aid and get offended when people don’t recognize Red as the Black National Flavor. And fuck you if you don’t think its possible for the color Red to be a flavor.

Cuz you know what, it is! And dammit…aren’t we on TV not acting a damn fool bojanglin’????

(Sometimes not all the time.)

Let’s grander scope this. And yes that was a horribly constructed sentence. I often wonder if anything that we get will ever be enough. Hmm, contentious sentence wasn’t it. See, there are certain things that should come natural in life: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As black folks we come up short on all three of those inalienable rights. Hell, often times the only life we get is 25 to Life. Liberty, well, we just got that shit less than 200 years ago and somebody forgot to tell a few people in Mississippi and Alabama that we’s free now. Pursuit of happiness? Well that one is hard too. It’s hard to be happy when you’re broke as hell and still have to worry about being robbed, which makes no sense.

[***Sidenote: My people...we're robbing the wrong folks. Most robbers in the ghetto that rob other folks in the ghetto are really just practicing. What's the point of robbing me for $2?? True, you're chances of getting caught are drastically decreased but shit, WE DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY!!! WE LIVE WITH YOUR DUMB ASS. Go...rob people in NICE NEIGHBORHOODS!***]

So I understand that we have a long way to go in order to get to a point where we feel like we aren’t losing just by being born black. However, forgive me for sounding like Booker T. Washington, who for some is a hero and for others set the black people back years, but I think we sometimes get a little bit carried away with the shit we take issue with. We complain about shit that black people are making headways in. And for this reason I often wonder if anything will be good enough? If we were to somehow miraculously get reparations (which I’m totally against if it were to be monetary) would we then be content?? We claim we deserve the shit to make amends for past wrongs but you know what…I don’t think it would…AND…I don’t think muhfucka’s would be content.

We can’t look at a magazine and see black women without complaining that they just stereotypically picked dark skinneded (I really just can’t spell that word right) black women with exagerrated features, or that all the light skinnededed women look white. What happened to progress?? Why is that we can’t just be glad that we are finally getting somewhere?

We get pissed at shows on TV because we don’t think they reflect real black people. Yet short of the gangster epidemic of the early 90’s, most of the shows on TV nowadays exhibit some upwardly mobile black families or people with real jobs. Even on UPN…yes THAT UPN, the shows have black folks who are doing things with themselves. Aside from the shitastic show “Cutz” and “The Parkers” (which was only bad because Kim was SO damn dumb) most of the shows on TV that have black folks in them are exactly stereotyping down. Yet we’re quick to complain about ALL of them and for real, only the shows on BET have room for understandable complaint.

Because we’re on TV bitches!!!

People act like we’ve come so damned far that we can now start complaining and acting dumb towards our own black folks. Newsflash bitches, we haven’t made it that far yet. We have no room to be complaining when we have black people making a way of any kind. We don’t have so much shit where we can discriminate on our own people. And yes it goes both ways. But I’ll be gotdamned if…

…WE AREN’T ALL FUCKIN’ BLACK.

Yet here we go at every turn complaining not that black people are on TV and in movies, but its only lightskinneded black people in movies. Why can’t we just be glad that we’re breaking this barrier at all. We’ve got a lot of history to burn and it won’t all happen overnight. We used to understand that. Nowadays, it’s not good enough and it’s SO not good enough that we hate on our own folks who might be paving the way for the next up and coming black person.

This is clearly part of the the fact that we are all prone to comparing ourselves to one another and that we’ve been pitted against eachother since back when George Washington and ‘nem owned us, but still, we’ve got to do mo’ better people.

I’m not usually just for accepting shit and saying we’ll at least we got that, but that’s usually because there are no other black people there. But sometimes, I think we just have our priorities wrong. Instead of focusing on the areas where there are no black people in any capacity, we just get pissed at the kind of black people that are making moves.

Somebody of great significance to me dropped this quote on me the other day:

“things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least”

I don’t know who said it but I’ll be damned if that doesn’t sum up my opinion on this and life in general. We can’t keep getting caught up on shit that in the grand scheme of things does something positive for all of us.

Bottom line…you can’t hold somebody down unless you stay down there with them.

Do the knowledge.

…Panama!

*said to the tune of Juelz Santana of Dip Set and Pink lore’s overbearly loud but ridiculously hot joint from last year “S.A.N.T.A.N.A.”*

I took a break of sorts noted by the sporadicity (that could be a word, but I’m sure it ain’t) of my postatiousness. You know I just realized, I’m letting you know this like you give a shit. Truthfully, most folks come thru blogs and are like, hmm, new post.

Read.

No new post.

Peace.

I wonder how many folks actually sit around and wonder what happened to blogger’s that just ain’t blogging. Does anybody really care? I think I care for a good day, maybe, then I’m over it. Unless I’m really feeling your blog in which case I keep coming back hoping you haven’t pulled a Michael Jackson on me and became “Gone Too Soon.”

Okay, that was lame. But I’m sexxier than you…you’ll deal.

[***DISCLAIMER: You know, over the past few months, I've informed the masses how sexxy I am. It's been called into question a few times but truth be told...I AM sexxier than you. Deal with the shit. Really, kick off your shoes, turn on TV, and suck that shit up. If you are unable to suck it up, then go die. Fuck that, just perish...Panama says JUST PERISH.***]

Like we always do about this time.

Hmm…something else. A few entries back, some cat said I didn’t have that same punch that I used to have. Not in those exact words I’m just too lazy to go back and actually pull the comment. You know what, you were right dog. I’m gonna get back to my old self but you know what the problem WAS??

Niggas were acting right. Aside from the standard dumb shit that occurs when you walk in your neighborhood, for the most part folks been behaving…

…fortunately, that never lasts long, and with it being warm outside, my spirits have been dampened with some of the gotdamn just WRONG I’ve seen thru the mean streets of DC and PG County, Maryland. On a random note, PG County, Maryland, has seen a 50% increase in homicides from this same point last year. Not coincidentally, the police/ambulance/firetruck presence in my neighborhood has seemed to be on a steep incline in the past two weeks. Rev up the tracks, bitches, cuz I just got a new boost of rap credibility.

(This has been some random shit.)

Hmm…oh yes. How can I forget to do this. My homie from California, the infamous C-Breezy calls me on Saturday evening to tell me that she is in the same lobby as Christina Milian. She also informs me that she has no camera nor will she go and give Christina Milian my phone number. I’m telling you, one phone call and she’d be got. So…since I love my friends I have to do this:

I’d like to send and extra special fuck you out to C-Breezy for not coming thru for me when I needed it most. I ain’t ask you for a kidney, I just merely asked you to walk over to a semi-famous (cuz really nobody cares that much about her) person, tell her you have a crazy friend who’d drink her bathwater as long as there was some Nestle Quik in there…I prefer strawberry…and give her my phone number and talk me up a little bit.

That’s all.

But did you do it. Nope.

Fuck you.

(This is just waaaaaay to random.)

Last but not least…it’s time to get ready for The Takeover: THROWDOWN IN BLOGTOWN.

One mo’ ‘gain…its shaking down on May 20th, in the year of YO MAMA, 2005, from 630-until at the Left Bank (2424 18th Street, NW) in Adams Morgan. This spot was conveniently chosen to ensure that if we felt like moving the party into the streets or into somewhere else…WE CAN!!!
So come one come all in the DC/MD/VA/Baltimore area cuz we gonna get it up.

Date: Friday, May 20, 2005
Time: 630 (though we know you all won’t be there til at the earliest 7pm) until you can get home safely or just decided to ride out…
Place: Left Bank in Adams Morgan (2424 18th Street, NW)

Lest us not forget that I’m Panama Muhfuckin’ and a party ain’t a party ’til I run thru it!!!

And the clouds parted…