Despite being a polarizingly craptastic ass song, there’s something to be said for Jay’s current re-emergence into the rap game via the movie American Gangster.

It’s all about inspiration. Upon seeing the movie, Jay was inspired to create again. And not in the way of Kingdom Come, though despite a few missteps wasn’t as bad an album as has been stated but was more-or-less non-relatable to the majority of his fans. Hell, he namechecked things on that album that I didn’t know existed. In fact, I’m still not sure if they actually do exist as I wouldn’t know where to find them to actually prove their existence. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

Inspiration is a strange beast for it can come in many shapes and sizes. It can be Oprah pre- or post-tubby tubby or it can come from Tubby Tubby Oprah. You might walk outside and see a bum with a glimmer of hope in his eye that’s really only the residual film from his latest doping binge, bu you see hope and he sees…well, not much really. But somebody got something out of that exchange.

Speaking of weird exchanges, as I made my way to work this morning through the mean streets of Northwest Washington, DC, I noticed nothing short of a cavalcade of cross-dressing he-shes walking down New York Avenue. These were clearly men doing their best rendition of the rumored Oscar De La Hoya froo-froo-she-she pictures that have been circulating Al Gore’s Internet. It baffled me–why in George Michael would a bunch of cross-dressing he-shes be walking down New York Avenue in daylight? And it was like a gang of them. You can’t turn one big gay group trick. Not in the morning.

Maybe they lost a bet. Me no know.

Inspiration.

I remember when I first started blogging, I was so excited to be writing random shit that some people actually stopped by to read. I remember getting my first comment from somebody I didn’t know–talk about your total pick me up. I felt inspired. I had a million and one ideas and nothing planned either. I just opened up Blogger and started typing away and what happened happened. There was no real thought process to it. I remember going to blogger “outings” where other bloggers would mention how they spent time thinking of things to write about. I never had that problem. Most of the time I’d just see something in the news or wherever and get to typing. The world is full of inspiration if you just look long enough.

Plus, I’m black. It’s almost not even fair. No pun intended.

But somewhere along the way, Donny, Roberta and I lost that loving feeling. My interests shifted to other venues. Blogging was cool but what was the point. I wasn’t changing the world really. Arrogant as it may seem, everybody who blogs feels that they’re important enough to have something that other people should read. Any blogger who says otherwise is lying and full of shit. We’re all exhibitionists by nature. Some maybe slightly more comedic or entertaining. Some focus strictly on gossip, etc. But everybody who has blogged has been inspired by something or other to blog. And I didn’t have any inspiration.

Blogging became work not play. And if there’s one thing I never wanted to happen, it was for blogging to become a job. Mostly because I wasn’t seeing nann penny from doing this here. Sure I’d been offered some paid writing gigs but they were all in the hip-hop realm. And writing about rap all the time isn’t in my nature. The world’s too big and there are way too many issues to focus on the world of hip-hop. Plus that would require me to actually listen to niggas like Soulja Boy and provide commentary. I’d prefer to just be entertained by it and not think too hard.

To be clear, if you are forced to think about Soulja Boy’s impact on society, go kill yourself. Ironically, killing yourself would be suicide, which involves death which is totally hip-hop.

Yes, it’s true. Being dead is so hip-hop. Word to Abe Lincoln.

Part of the loss of inspiration is that I knew I wasn’t adding much new to the canon anymore. I’m off kilter like hell but there are a million off-kilter mothertruckers out there. I stopped travellling so much. I stopped watching television which is the source of so much fodder. Plus I’d rather just watch some shit than have to think about the angle I might take on it. It’s difficult to enjoy something if you have to constantly break it down into pieces. Sometimes you just want to enjoy something for what it is. I love Kanye’s new album and its because I haven’t spent any time actually analyzing it for its flaws or for its impact on society.

However, that’s somewhat irresponsible of me. If you have a voice you’re supposed to use it, right? And quite honestly, I do think at times of what I could have achieved had I continued blogging and perhaps taken it as seriously as some people. Difference is, I never wanted to become a famous writer or anything. Hell, I didn’t even know I could “write” until somebody told me they liked my writing. I’m Jay-Zing this shit. Just kind of writing what I think. But then I hear motherfuckers who blog getting on television and radio and saying some uberfucking shit.

And I get inspired.

I hear niggas with causes that go about shit in the wrong way. I hear misguided individuals trying to misguide other motherfuckers. I hear people singing the praises of Master P and his newfound “enlightenment” that allows him to preen for the corporate sponsorship that evaded him while he was the Ice Cream Man. I don’t hear a “reformed” rapper realizing the error of his ways.

I hear a nigga upset that he didnt realize sooner that he could have capitalized on more money had he did things differently. I don’t hear a man thinking of his community. I hear a nigga who wants that white money too. Nothing wrong with that Percy. Just shut the fuck up about your growth.

Then I read motherfuckers railing on David Banner who was the ONLY motherfucker in the actual entertainment industry (including what HAD to be a drunk ass Mos Def on Bill Maher) who had anything intelligible and coherent to say to a Congress with nothing better to do with their time. Agree or disagree with him, at least he can make a point and defend it, sometimes to his detriment.

And the criticism is coming from so-called enlightened people and motherfuckers with purpose. I hate Michael Eric Dyson too but he did make some good points.

Inspiration.

Perhaps what I need to do is just go back to what inspired me to write in the first place. Stupid shit and ignorant motherfuckers. It ain’t like they’ve gone anywhere. They’re still here alive and kicking. They haven’t killed themselves.

I’m inspired to try.

Black with inspiration is what we called the Harlem Renaissance.

(Some white money would help too.)

Plus I have to stop somebody from sullying my name. Google Panama Jackson and you’ll find out what I’m talking about.

I.am.inspired.are.you?

Justice.

Of all the words that have had any semblance of meaning since Black people were mercilessly brought to the United States, justice is the word that has had the most lasting effect. Not the n-word. Not racism.

Justice.

Black people have been searching for justice for hundreds of years. Sadly, we’ve yet to find any. The Jena 6 is a prime example of the lack of justice that America see’s fit to don upon Black people. Everything about that case just reeks of differential treatment and outright arrogance on the part of the prosecutors of LaSalle Parish in Louisiana.

It reminds me of the movie “Ghosts of Mississippi” where Byron De La Beckwith tells the Assistant DA Bobby DeLauder that “no jury in the state of Mississippi would convict a white man of killing a Black man.” Sure that was 1963 (initially) and he was acquitted of killing Medgar Evers at the time but for some reason those words just resound to me.

Those 6 young men were arrested for what amounts to a fistfight. The white student was up and running and attending events that very evening yet Louisiana is ready to put these young men in jail for damn near life? Mychal Bell, the first convicted, had his charges thrown out for battery and assault because the state claims he should have been tried as a juvenile.

Hmm…what about the people who put the nooses up? That’s a hate crime. This whole fucking country has issues. Hell, in Darfur, AMERICA was loathe to call what was happening genocide, because that means that we’d have to get involved. Sure, we can police the Middle East, but to hell with Africa.

Justice.

I’ll always contend that race relations in this country will remain the way they are now forever. Black people think everything is racism and white people think nothing is racism and that’s about as close to the middle as we’ll ever get. But what I’ve always wondered is why white people seem to ignore the impetus for our reasoning? Black people have been lynched for doing so much as looking at a white woman without even a hint of fear of paying for it.

In layman’s terms: for hundreds of years a white man could kill a Black man with reckless abandon because they had a justice system on their side. Not even just on their side; gleefully on their side. For fuck’s sake, any white man could walk into a courtroom with a smile and some sweetened tea and just wait for “justice” to prevail. That justice would be the white man getting acquitted for crimes he might actually have admitted to.

Justice.

How am I, a Black man raised to believe in people supposed to feel when I know that people can and will justify any and everything. A few weeks ago at the University of Maryland-College Park, Maryland’s flagship institution of higher learning, a noose was hung from a tree near the Black student union. Amazingly it allegedly stayed there for a week before it was taken down. I’d be willing to bet my life on it that for as many Black people who were offended and even scared that something like that would happen on a very diverse campus, as many white students claimed it was just a prank and not to take it so seriously.

A noose. A symbol of white power for hundreds of years. It symbolised the white man’s ability to get away with murder. It also symbolised the fear that Black people had to endure because ultimately, a white man could get away with murder.

Mind you, I recognize that the system was more to blame than merely the individuals involved. However, what kind of people could accept a system that devalued human life in such a manner. The problem is that in America, the system trumps all. Everybody can hide behind the law. Almost 600,000 people in the District of Columbia have no elected voting representation in Congress because of the “law”. Forget what’s implicity right. Nevermind that whatever advantage the addition of a voting member in the House for the District would totally be offset by an additional House seat in Utah. It violates the “law”. And that is what’s most important. Laws intended to protect and serve. However, residents of the district don’t get a say in the laws they are ultimately held accountable to.

Justice.

As a young Black man I have an unhealthy distrust for the justice system. I always worry that if I’m stopped for anything other than a routine traffic stop, I’m going to jail and I might never see the light of day again. Why do I think so negatively? Because it’s a real possibility. The stakes are so high for Black people, and men in particular, that achieving a certain age is akin to an actual accomplishment. I can actually brag on never having been to jail. That is a problem.

We live in a country where justice has two prongs: white justice as displayed in Jena, Louisiana (lest we forget that a gun was pulled on a group of Black students yet no charges were filed…let me try that on somebody and see what happens), and Black justice as displayed in Jena, Louisiana where six young men who got into a fist-fight were charged with attempted murder (later reduced to battery and assault).

Further, let us not forget that it all started because there was an actual “white” tree in Jena, Louisiana. A situation where until the status quo was questioned, all people were just as happy to live their lives in their own version of American reality. If anything, this entire saga just teaches us that as Black youth, if you attempt to challenge the status quo that the American way of life accepted, you just might find yourself staring down the barrel of a 25 to life.

I hope and pray that all of the demonstrating gets the message across. I’m proud of all of those individuals who made their way to Jena to protest and demonstrate. My hat’s off to them. I’m just sad that in 2007 in America, a nation that feels we can trumpet our way of life across the world as a paragon of the right way to do things, we still have a situation where a Black man’s life can mean so little.

And there are just way too many examples to illustrate that point.

Justice.

*wiping dust off this thing*

I don’t even know the last time I wrote something here.

Okay, that’s a lie. Especially since these here blogs are timestamped and all sugarcoatery sweet. But you get the point. The kid took a mean two week vacation from all of his jobs.

The kid = me.

I ventured to the good ole dirty South and the dirty streets of New York City. I didn’t do much of anything but sit around and watch television with the joy of knowing that I didn’t have to wake up too early or anything. If all I wanted to do was scratch myself all day, then by George, all I had to do was scratch myself.

Well, that and stay hydrated. It was dastardly hot down South. I saw old friends that I don’t get to see enough. I debated life and its hardships with people. Specifically the Michael Vick case which has managed to not even make CNN anymore. Oh what a short attention span we have in this country.

A good question was posed to me. This question baffled me since it had never even really dawned on me before it was posed by one of my hombres in the NYC. Harlem to be exact. Lennox Terrace stand up.

How in the hell does Michael Vick NOT have a plan in place to pay off any of his “boys” who are going to dime him out? Basically, what the fuck happened to the contingency plan in case shit went, ya know, wrong?

Like it did.

If I’m a multi-millionaire athlete with promises of muchos moreo denero, you better believe that I will never even almost face jail time. All of my compadres will be well paid and under the impression that as long as we all shut the fuck up, we’ll all live well. I wonder what happened in the Vick case.

I’m trying to decide if I plan on writing a review of Kanye’s album. I absolutely love it though I keep reading reviews that pan it. There seems to be a very polarized opinion on this album. It’s either hate or love without much in-between. Some folks think it needs to grow on them. All I know is that on September 11th, make sure you pick up Graduation. It’s not as ambitious an album as his last two but man, its one good ass album by any measuring stick.

You know who puts on one hell of a live show? Camp Lo. That’s who.

What the fuck does cranking that Roosevelt mean?

And how does one first crank that Roosevelt and THEN supersoak that ho? Does it work in reverse? Like can I supersoak a ho and then crank that Roosevelt or would that result in some other form of crankage?

Somehow, I need to know this in my life.

I watched Dreamgirls last night for the first time since I saw it at the movies. Hmm…it seemed way more terrible at home than it did at the movies. Perhaps it’s one of those films best suited (and only) suited for theaters because it just seemed long, boring, and way too singy. And I didn’t mind the singy at the theater.

But let me tell you what movie is good, Just Friends. Some random ass movie on Showtime had me in actual tears from laughing so hard.

Super Bad? Not so much though it was enormously funny despite serious lulls in the middle. Oh yeah, and it was a total emo cum homo-erotic tale of two boys who seemingly have to break up with one another. If another grown ass man puts his pointer finger on my nose twice in a loveydovey flick motion…I just might have to robocop that ho.

On Sunday night/Monday morning I returned home at roughly 430am. Across the street from me, was a man laying on a white Mustang. The catch? He was sleeping standing up resting his head on the roof of the car. This motherfucker fell asleep standing up and then leaning on his car. I swear I never want to be so drunk where robbery has to happen on GP. Luckily, I was raised right.

Hello world, meet Sugar Whitewall. Today, you do not know why you need to know who that is. Just know that it’s important to know the name Sugar Whitewall.

And cut.