Cija's Quips

*For those who may not catch the reference, ‘Message!’ was something the Wayans Bros. said throughout their movie, ‘Don’t be a Menace While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood’.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love the Muppets. Miss Poogy (pictured above), a Moopet aka the knock-off version of a Muppet, has only the face a mother could love. Looking at her ill-tempered visage made me laugh and lighten the mood of my post. In a nutshell, it’s been brought to my attention that I have a tendency to be negative and after taking inventory and realizing it’s true I thought Miss Poogy’s face is a fantastic representation of how I feel on the inside much of the time…hmmmm maybe that explains things! In all seriousness though I’ve been introspective of late and it’s reflected in the stream of consciousness flow below:

I struggle with being thankful. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for so much in my life, particularly when I open my eyes another morning, but where I fall short is sustained gratefulness. As embarrassing as it is to admit, my boyfriend (b.f.) recently told me I was really negative which was like a small arrow to my heart; while hot tears jumped into my eyes and spilled down my cheeks my mind cast about for whether there was any truth to his statement. Granted I had made what I thought was an innocuous statement but I guess I was wrong. He apologized, I accepted and we  moved on but his comment gives me pause because it’s the exact same comment a close friend of mine said to me way back in 1994. I remember feeling the same way, hurt that someone could misconstrue me and (in my mind) subsequently where I come from.

So where do I come from? I come from a family that has struggled mightily under the weight of the depression my father carried with him beginning around when I was 15, which continued until his death in 2008. You see, he had lofty goals for himself and his family, he went to law school and received his juris doctorate but could never get over not passing the bar exam after his 3rd try. He looked at himself as a failure, not only did his plan to uplift our lives disintegrate, his plans to make his parents proud of him also went up in smoke, even as a grown man with seven children his parents were quick to judge him and what they also perceived to be his failures. My Mom spent a lot of time, as many women I know frequently do, trying to help build his self-esteem. She suggested he count his riches through the image of his children for she believed they had been blessed in abundance by our birth. Unfortunately there was nothing anyone could do to boost his self-esteem so my father never recovered from feeling like he failed mightily in his life. To be honest his ‘giving up’ on life caused a serious deficit in all of us including my mother because we have gone through life attempting to  circumvent life’s land mines rather than embracing it with wonder and awe…in fact as I write this I believe this has contributed to my attitude of looking at the world defensively. This past March when my Mom was asked what she was giving up for Lent, her response was “My life has been Lent, I’m giving up nothing”. That comment sums up all of us, we Jefferson siblings all struggle with looking at the world with bright hopeful eyes; we wonder at the poverty of our youth, the many deaths we’ve had to endure, and lifelong illnesses that threaten some of us.

While having a conversation with my friend the other day about my being negative, she reminded me that my experiences and the environment I was raised in would definitely contribute to my cautious and pessimistic nature. This was one of those ‘things that make you go hmmm’ moments for me, so now I have to determine how to move forward. How do I recalibrate my mind to not default to negativity all of the time? Another friend whom I spoke with today made a suggestion: wake up every morning saying thank you for everything even those things I find frustrating like some aspects of my job. Her advice was to use the things I struggle with as “…an empowerment tool.” She further went on to say that with something like my job, to not view it as my job using me but as I’m using it to get what I want and should cherish it like a gift that of course allows me pay bills and have a little fun, but most importantly inspires me to create so I’m nurturing and nourishing my artistic self. Between the catalyst comment from the b.f. several days back, conversations I’ve had with two different friends and an acquaintance over the past three days, and my quarterly prayer schedule (turns out I remember to pray quarterly) asking God to please please please help me to approach each day with an open heart and thankful spirit, I’m seeing a personal growth spurt in the works. Clearly I’m being challenged to fight this negativity that pervades my being. My instinct is to grasp for it, my familiar friend, my defense mechanism, after all aren’t I being ‘realistic’? Apparently the answer is no, my negativity has stealthily created a dark fog that follows me like the funk around Pig Pen, but I’m determined to take a damn bath and clear the air. There is no happy ending tied up in a bow, rather there is the constant working on self, the use of knowledge newly gleaned and the restoring of faith in God; like the writer Albert Camus said, “I’d rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.”

This pic is a follow-up to yesterday’s blog posting which profiled all of the lovely garbage under this very grate that you see in the above picture. For a quick run-through for those who may not have seen yesterday’s post, under that grate is the following: a styrofoam cup and small (also styrofoam) take-out container, an empty Gevalia coffee box, and a presumed empty purple box of LifeStyles condoms. All of the above are blown into a leaf drift pile under the grate which is not visible from the exterior street level view but is all too-apparent from within my apartment since about a foot of the window is under that grate and visible to me in my dining area.

Ahhhhh once again I’m reminded why living in a city is sooooo worth it- random garbage thrown under the grate of my window. Here we have an empty Gevalia box, a presumably empty LifeStyles condom box, and several empty styrofoam takeout items all blown into a leaf drift. On the same grate I’ve seen someone  allow their dog to get positioned to take a shit, until I banged the window mid-poo and scared the poor dog into sucking it back up the chute. As cruel as it may sound, to me it’s cruel to even imagine looking at my window as some dog poo fossilizes and clings to the grate.

On another occassion the b.f. witnessed an older ‘gentleman’ get out of his car and throw some papers into the grate; deciding this was a battle he felt strongly about, he decided to run outside and confront stranger. He asked if he would want somebody to drive to the suburbs and throw trash on his lawn. I guess dude was too scared or shocked to answer, in fact he might still be high-tailing it, like a cartoon character running over a distant hill, to this very day. 

I just had to share since I was absentmindedly pulling the shades when I noticed this mess and it pissed me off. The worst part is that it’s easier for that crap to get in the grate then it is to get it out! Anyhoo, such is city life and still, despite all my various rants about living in the city, there are enough raves to keep me here.

Ya’ll have a fantastic night and hey, celebrate Biggie, today would be his 40th birthday. My favorite song is ‘I Got a Story to Tell’, find that joint in your collection or head over to Spotify and have a listen.

So my work day ended in a burst of proverbial flame when one of my students decided to end a phone call with the comment, ‘you talk too much’, are you effing kidding me??? Did you just call my dayum phone and ask me a thousand and one questions which all led to a dead-end forcing me to gather together your tidbits put on my Nancy Drew cap and try to figure out the best way to ‘assist’ you? YO! Needless to say she needs to speak to a manager because my response, ‘are you talking to me like that when I’m trying to help you’ or something like that offended her. Admittedly my favorite part of my job is listening to the words people say, taking their clues, and putting together the puzzle of what the real issue is. This particular individual definitely provided me all of the requisite information. After writing copious notes in her record and wasting about an hour of my life on the issue I bounded out of work into the beautiful day I managed to miss since not once did I go outside…not a practice I recommend. Clearly my earlier plans to hit up the laundry mat were not going to work on such a beautiful evening and after staying late at work to wrap up my research on the aforementioned individual. I decided to swing into Whole Foods where I grabbed some salmon and mangoes deciding to make a green salad with salmon, chopped mango and homemade salad dressing. The whole time I’m in the grocery store I’m debating about what I’m going to watch on the tube tonight and decided it was imperative for me to go to Sound Garden and buy season 2 of Downtown (downton) Abbey, my new addiction. Since the b.f. is at work tonight I can watch in my private little bliss…he might watch but without the same passion I have. After grabbing tonight’s activity I sidled past the used hip-hop section of the store back-pedaling to eye-ball what was on deck, boy was I happy when I stumbled across The Pharcyde’s LABCABINCALIFORNIA cd. If you don’t know about The Pharcyde and are looking for some crazy ass high times antics start with BIZARRERIDE which is probably best known on the radio (back in the early 90s) for the song ‘Passin Me By’. A lot of peeps I knew were disappointed with LABCABINCALIFORNIA but not me, honestly both records were totally different but the first one was so off tha hook that I think folks couldn’t wrap their mind around labcabin. If you like underground Cali hip-hop (like Souls of Mischief, Abstract and Aceyalone) you will also dig The Pharycyde; find em on Spotify and listen to all of their music. Check out these videos to get a taste if you never heard them before or to enjoy a nice little flashback:

Passin’ Me By (BIZZARRERIDE): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uITm2gnHmMM&feature=fvsr

Drop (LABCABINCALIFORNIA): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co3qMdkucM0

…oh snap just rewatched Drop and saw a posting from one of the dude’s in Pharcyde stating that Beastie Boys popped up in this video in a brief cameo…

This evening’s blog is brought to you by Soul-Glo…

Jheri curls were the topic of discussion this afternoon at work. Why, you may ask, are we discussing some null and void hair-do courtesy of the 80s and whose Soul-Glo flow was made famous in the couch scene in Coming to America? Well it’s because I was busily acting superior to my friend, who shall remain nameless, who readily admitted to having proudly rocked her jheri curl and then “…upgraded to a wave nouveau”, which for those who are uninitiated are just moderate jheri curls, meaning  less juice aka activator. You may have noticed how earlier I said I was acting superior, well that’s because my mother was horrified by jheri curls and frankly anything processed (including relaxed aka straightened hair) and so when I, always trying to be on the forefront of any trend, asked her to get a jheri curl, she saved me from future shame by yelling, “No child of mine is going to have a damn jheri curl!” Fast forward back to today and this talk of jheri curls reminded me of the movie Hollywood Shuffle, a movie I feel should go down in the annals of film history, especially any section about black films.

Hollywood Shuffle was released back in 1987 when I was still elementary school-aged, I remember it coming on HBO and watching it with my older brother. Although if watching the film now I might think it a bit campy, Robert Townsend, writer*-director-and lead character of this movie addressed some issues that I’ve heard black actors popular today mention such as:  diversity of roles within ‘black’ films and being picked for roles that aren’t written specifically as black characters. Townsend tackles these and other topics in his satirical film about a young man trying to make it in Hollywood as a serious actor while struggling to avoid being typecast as the pimp, the butler, or the gangster. Hilarity ensues as Townsend’s character struggles through audition after audition, trying to make his grandmother (the HA-larious Helen Martin) and little brother proud of him, along the way Townsend interlays some hilarious skits such as ‘Black Acting School’ (see clip below) and his detective character Ace who confronts a potential killer named Jheri Curl (see clip below, you may recognize a younger Keenan Ivory Wayans).  In the end the ultimate question is what is it all worth? Is it worth it to ‘sell out’ to potentially be richer and be type caste or is it more dignified to have standards and not just accept any role for the almighty dollar?Clearly these are not new questions and persist today, but Hollywood Shuffle stands out for me because although quite hysterical Townsend was broaching a serious topic for real discussion and consideration. 

I was young when this movie was released but it resonated for me not because I knew the drama black actors went through to get a non-stereotypical role but because it was so funny but the message was clear. Spike Lee, one of my favorite directors, illustrated some of the same ideas in his movie Bamboozled, but with a serious and darker edge that, layered with such heavy detail and historic reference, caused me to disconnect with rather than embrace the message. Hollywood Shuffle served the same purpose but in a shorter time with humor folded in to keep the ‘realness’ of the character’s struggle from suffocating the film. It didn’t hurt to watch Keenan’s  ‘hard core’ character Jheri Curl punk out and start snitching under Ace’s interrogation and threat of dumped activator, which is what led me to remember this movie in the first place. Now that I think about it, this is a classic that needs to be on my shelf! I’m going to swing by Amazon and see what I can find, in the meantime enjoy these clips and if seeing them out of context doesn’t work for you, see if you can put this in your Netflix queue.

*Keenan Ivory Wayans co-wrote Hollywood Shuffle

Link to clip, Ace Gets Jheri Curl to Talk (2 mins): http://movieclips.com/Logsd-hollywood-shuffle-movie-ace-gets-jheri-curl-to-talk/

Link to clip, Black Acting School (6 mins): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00ZNrw1swKs&list=UUNCZA8xwKoNPCWTcDPMYVPA&index=2&feature=plcp 

1. Pretty purple…I want a dress that color
2. Mannequinat the Flower Mart…disturbing yet quite creative
3. Line o’ unattended flowers that could simply walk away if I was my much younger self and wasn’t trapped by moral codes

4. Pit Beef Son! If you are a Marylander or have had the joy of seeing John Waters’ moviePecker(my fave-thanks for the introduction Blaire) then you know why pit beef is what is up! FULL OF GRACE!

Yeah Yeah, I know festivus is a winter ‘holiday’ but I love the word and as I thought about the jump-off to festival season- the annual Flower Mart- the now-famous festivus phrase tripped through my mind so I thought I’d share. I felt it appropriate here since the Flower Mart is positioned one block away from my pad; just this morning I had no idea the festival is scheduled for this weekend, it was brought to my attention by someone who does not even reside in my neighborhood. Good thing too, had I not known I’d be an angry woman right now. Any city dweller knows when May hits you better take note of the neighborhood festivals or you’ll be in a world of hurt circling block after concentric block, getting further and further away from your block, looking for the permit parking you pay for annually to try to avoid such a situation. During these times folks from neighboring barrios descend on your little slice of city life and take over the joint. Typically what this means is while they park in all the permit parking spots (which are two free hours of parking-a coup for any non-permit citizen) you-the neighborhood resident- actually can’t find parking and end up paying out of pocket. You hope you only have to toss a couple of quarters in the meter but I’ve actually been forced to pay parking lot fees which are always steeper. Hmmm this is starting to sound like a gripe but I’m not feeling negative about it, I just know to prepare and get-in where I fit in. My boss was so kind as to allow me to leave 30 minutes early to beat the five o’clock gridlock and for that I am grateful. Also my neighbor, (shout out to P. Collins!) actually put me D with a parking secret today, she told me that one street over has old-school meters (meaning you betta have some change) that only run until 6 pm Mon-Fri! What?! She hasn’t lived in this area for a year yet and I’ve been here for five; I never knew but today I tucked that golden nugget in my back pocket for safe-keeping and traded it in for a parking spot that does not require me to: a) move my car tonight after all visitors flee the area or b) get up with an alarm clock on a Saturday morning to pay for parking every two hours. Now that I’ve chilled out a bit to share this little tidbit, I’m putting on my walking shoes and heading up the block to check out all of the pretty flowers and the tasty food vendors. I’ll check back in with a couple of pictures in a little bit. Latas!