Finale (National Poetry Writing Month)
Well, that didn't go the way I planned ...
The normal Wednesday night reviews went until 4AM, which carpet bombed a long day in meetings on Thursday and a busy night with the family ... meaning I missed a day. Given that I started 2009 six days late, I don't feel that bad, but clearly my summary and recap was woefully premature. Like the tortoise and the hare, I lolly gagged and messed around and stumbled so close to the finish line that it's stupid.
Also funny, there are five Fridays in April, and I claimed my haiku series for my wife was four parts. Hahahahahaha! In the words of Bill Simmons, the moral, as always, is "I'm a moron." At least part time.
My misstep is even more frustrating because this blog may go on a very brief hiatus. Tonight's the last night that Blogger will allow FTP service, which means that once that goes, I'm gone. I won't be hosted by Google (I don't trust their cloud happy philosophy) and I won't give up the hard-won control my current domain and host provides. I blogged for years without a blogging service/engine and I am inches away from having FTP on my phone. I may try to do something with the Wordpress server that my friend installed since this stylish design house is freaking the theme for me, but until it's running, it's vaporware. I'm very confident the theme will be properly freaked and all the goodness of being good will, er, be all good.
If this is goodbye for a week or three, it's been a blast. Now -- two poems to close out NaPoWriMo 2010!
I cannot move any faster than this
My pace determined by some circumstance
Each step is vital and cannot be missed
Too much at stake to leave something to chance
I'm working just as hard as I can now
Focused on keeping steady as I go
A long time before I can take a bow
So many things can interrupt the flow
The truth is I have faltered in the past
but now sustained with never ending glee
good love, manifested in wife and kids,
and no one can take that away from me.
Won't complain as I nod and try to rush
If you ask me, I'm ready and I won't be crushed.
"Sonnet: How Long Is That Gonna Take?"
By Hannibal Tabu ... and, of course, the final haiku for my beloved bride ...
dance pretty sister
motion grace passion grooving
light lives in those smiles
"African Class"
By Hannibal Tabu,
with apologies to Sananda Maitreya Dude, I'm tired. Tabu out.
... I solemnly swear to always treat this roof like my daughters and raise it ...
Playing (Music): "Not Afraid" by Eminem
NOTE: Since this blog is automatically imported into my Facebook page, I apologize if you comment on it and I don't respond, as I am taking a sabbatical from social networking for 2010. So me not responding is not personal, I just won't see the comments ... until 2011. Maybe. Also including this disclaimer on blogs, but you're welcome to go to the blog itself and speak your mind, as I may look there ...Labels: blogging, creativity, daughter, family, fatherhood, haiku, napowrimo, poetry, wife, writing
I bet you think this poem's about you (National Poetry Writing Month)
This morning, I was asked if I'd post some sensitive details about someone I know. I had to refuse, and suddenly understood some things people had said about my writing. That, of course, led to this ...
When I was younger, I was fearless.
Talk about a thug rapper's momma
in front of his concert,
Surrounded by all of his boys.
Stand in front of Parker Center
with a picket sign
showin' Daryl Gates
sodomizing Bernie Parks
and dare somebody to say something.
If "AM" and "sunshine" went together
it was time to go to bed after
switching lanes suddenly
90 miles per hour
4AM on 405,
literally acting a fool.
Now there are quiet Saturday mornings
catching up on streamed TV shows
baby strapped to my chest.
Standing in dance performance aisles
to catch slivers of six-year-old smiles.
In bed before 11 on a Friday night.
I don't mind talk about me going soft.
Same stuff stays in my trunk,
still never sit with back to any door.
Closing open door policy on my life.
Details about dramas get delivered nowhere,
hard to grow up under stage lights
relative privacy a gift for the present.
It's not fear.
It's a healthy respect.
It's having people around.
So my blog becomes insular
my poetry less revealing
a sacrifice taken from art
given to tomorrow.
"The Curtain Falls"
by Hannibal Tabu
See ya tomorrow, we're in the home stretch now.
Playing (Music): "Bottle It Up" by Sara Bareilles
NOTE: Since this blog is automatically imported into my Facebook page, I apologize if you comment on it and I don't respond, as I am taking a sabbatical from social networking for 2010. So me not responding is not personal, I just won't see the comments ... until 2011. Maybe. Also including this disclaimer on blogs, but you're welcome to go to the blog itself and speak your mind, as I may look there ...Labels: blame society, decorum, family, napowrimo, parenting, poetry, privacy, writing
Burning Candles at Both Ends, and in the Middle (National Poetry Writing Month)
Oy.
I wanna write something that's not a haiku or a tanka. For real.
However, I'm baked like a ham soaked in honey. Tuesday night I was up late with a work thing, deploying a website and making sure nothing was on fire. Wednesday night I was up late with work, the weekly comic book reviews. Tonight I'm up late with a work thing, deploying a content management and version control system and verifying that everything works the way it should. I was up all day, being perky and cheery, as I took my stepdaughter to my office for Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Day, which had so much hilarity it deserves its own blog. I've got a dentist appointment at 11AM tomorrow.
Dude. Be happy with a freakin' haiku or tanka. Here goes.
Who are these people?
Hugs, warm milk, songs. They love me!
... who are these people?
"The Seeming Flow of Thoughts Based On My Newborn's Expressions"
By Hannibal Tabu I'm out like Ugly Betty's nephew. Well, not exactly like that ... "not that there's anything wrong with it ..."
Let's just move on.
Playing (Music): "Gold Digger" by the cast of Glee
NOTE: Since this blog is automatically imported into my Facebook page, I apologize if you comment on it and I don't respond, as I am taking a sabbatical from social networking for 2010. So me not responding is not personal, I just won't see the comments ... until 2011. Maybe. Also including this disclaimer on blogs, but you're welcome to go to the blog itself and speak your mind, as I may look there ...Labels: family, fatherhood, haiku, napowrimo, parenting, poetry, writing
Mobility
This blog is brought to you, live and direct, from my new Nokia N900 smartphone. My bony backside posted on the dusty red front stoop of my home, an "app" (in my day we just called it "software") called MaStory providing the gunsight for these ballistic syllables as I freestyle phonics directly from me to you.
Some don't get why a phone so powerful was needed. This morning while my infant daughter slept snugly strapped to my torso, I installed a Debian Linux package so I could rum a full featured word processor called OpenOffice, giving me full compatibility with those helplessly trapped on Massa Gates' plantation without letting actual software from Redmond into my life. Open source and as free as a Black man can hope to be in the western world, I now enjoy 40 gigabytes of digital domination on my left hip, from mp3s transmitted on an FM radio band to cropping photos and removing red eye.
The reasons why are myriad and mystifying. With two kids, breaking out the MacBook Pro is often logistically challenging and 181 grams is easier to carry and store than 5.9 pounds. As a journalist (of sorts) the concept of shooting 5 megapixel photos, editing them live and posting them with accompanying explication is an intoxicating whiff of the ultimate scoop. Again, it comes down to freedom, the ability to do where before "doing" took some ... well, doing.
So maybe more blogs, yes? Let's see what happens.
Watching (kids): playing with dogs and scooters in familiar drivewaysLabels: blogging, family, freedom, life, technology
Scattershot (work friends phones politics gratitude life)
BANG! BANG! Bullet point blog shots to your dome, home skillet!
- Today I flew to Oakland at 7AM for an all-day staff meeting. I didn't really consider it the best usage of my time, but I got some good news: I got a raise at my job that will kick in within a month, plus a nice little bonus based on merit. Me! Merit actually recognized! I'm so flabbergasted at that I think I'll start a new savings account.
- I also was extraordinarily blessed to hang out with my friends, libertarian kook and activist Jere and anti-Obama crusader Jabir. We ate at a place in Jack London Square called Kincaid's and recorded what might one day be one heck of an amusing podcast. Jere and I also re-enacted a scene from Pulp Fiction because the rental company stuck him with a Grand Marquis that had less than 9,000 miles on it. I almost wanted to make out with this car. I love domestic sedans, I won't apologize for that.
- When I got home to my beautiful wife and sleeping daughter, I ordered my new phone, the Nokia N900. I also got a hard rubber case to protect it. My laughable Samsung Behold 1, which I could only review like this will likely be used as a spare camera/MP3 player for the car. I'm excited to step back into the 21st century, but a little nervous about getting all my data up and running on a new OS which is not exactly user friendly. More news on that as it develops, as the phone should be in my hot little hands by Wednesday.
- Saskatchewan.
- My dinner at Kincaid's with Jere and Jabir got me really interested in this book and how DDT could save millions of lives (while, admittedly, whacking a few along the road) as well as spur on development on the African continent. Maybe I'll expand on that. Maybe.
- My stepdaughter's mother got me some down slippers. I barely know the woman. I find that extraordinarily kind and generous, and appreciate it a great deal. I am very blessed to have some very good people in my life.
- Shut up, you're drunk!
- Also got a very nice comment about my good friend Craig, who I miss dearly but who (like many of my friends) simply operates outside of my periphery right now. The good thing is that like many other friends -- Inpu, Dana, Malik, McGowan, some others -- the second I see him we'll fall right back into that old rhythm, like we never missed a beat. I'm very grateful for that too.
- I think the $12 backpack I carry my work computer in is starting to show some signs of wear and tear ... I bought it on a whim at a Sav-On in Westchester late one night.
- Why is this bullet point blog not on The Hundred and Four like the last one I did? It's more personal. The last one was more "look around at the world" and what not.
- I will say, musically, that I'm enjoying the surprisingly smart mixtape from Malcolm and Martin and the singer London's new project, both of which have me itching with ideas for a mixtape of my own. Lloyd's also been dropping some digital heat, while Chris Brown's been engaging his Euro-pop side with songs that would likely rock Catch One. Mateo's new project is also a revelation, so far.
- Sleep now. Early morning watching Fraulein Fussenfeiffer (my daughter Ella's nickname is "Fuss," which I have morphed into Doctor Fussenstein and more weird configurations, which are at least close to being spoken in English) while the wife teaches, then (I think) a 3D screening of Alice in Wonderland and maybe time for my weekly haircut at my barber's new shop (he's a co-owner), Head of The Line Barber Shop, 5420 Adams Boulevard, 323-691-8475. Clean shop, nice neighborhood, an organic cafe next door, ample street parking and some hilarious freakin' barbers crackin' jokes in there.
Playing (Music): "I'ma Rep Texas" by Chamillionaire
NOTE: Since this blog is automatically imported into my Facebook page, I apologize if you comment on it and I don't respond, as I am taking a sabbatical from social networking for 2010. So me not responding is not personal, I just won't see the comments ... until 2011. Maybe. Also including this disclaimer on blogs, but you're welcome to go to the blog itself and speak your mind, as I may look there ...Labels: family, friends, gratitude, life, music, phones, politics, randomness, work
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