CRAP/ My Journal by Al Brathway

June 3rd. Sunday/ Damn, it's June already? Where did the time go? That's been happening to me alot lately. I'm losing track of time. I mean, Friday, I was in Baltimore hanging w/ a fellow writer... We were kicking around ideas about future projects we have yet to tackle... Haven't even written down one note about anything, yet we plotted a course of ideas that will last for a long time... The creative process is genius unto itself! And now I am back at my desk, tinkering w/ my journal, recording the doings of the last couple of days. Friday I was hopeful. Today I feel hopeless. Why is that? If I had (real) money, I could afford a "shrink" but I wouldn't go. Hell, I'd take that money and invest in a liquor store. My therapy would be a lot cheaper and I would feel the results (effects) of my (drinking) therapy a whole lot quicker than talking to some loony toons doctor at $150.00/hr and coming out feeling more crazy than I felt going in! But, I cannot afford a doctor and, at the very least, frequent a liquor store... So where does that leave me? Slowly I spiral into the abyss of depression. I blurt out sentence fragments at inopportune times, only to have people look at me, thinking I'm talking to myself (which I am!) and silently label me crazy! And during this whole process, time is marching on and I cannot get that seemingly "crazy" moment back when I started mumbling to myself while standing in a line at (hopefully) a liquor store waiting for my liquid medication. (And judging by the stocked shelves, they have the goods for what ails me!) CRAP!

CRAP/ My Journal by Al Brathway

May 27th, Sunday/ It's Sunday evening on Memorial Day weekend and I'm chillin'. Yesterday was a bust. I didn't do a damned thing so you would think I would have made an entry right? Anyway, I'm watching the Tom Joyner Show and Toni Braxton is on. I'm not a fan of hers but I got to thinking about her career. She was doing Tom Joyner's show, which is not a bad thing. But I got to thinking about how big she was coming out of the gate.You know, the whole Baby Face, LA Reid thing...Then I got to thinkin' about what it must be like when you have had the big buzz in your career and then you die out. It's like you have that dream about being some "big shot" in entertainment or sports or business and before you know it, your life has passed you by. And, if you ever had it, what is it like when you don't have it anymore? If you were lucky, you made some real money and had your name up in lights... People loved you and couldn't wait to see you! Your ass got real arrogant and you wouldn't sign an autograph for some tear filled child, standing there holding your picture that was torn out of a magazine... And, you just breeze on by like, "...How dare you ask me for my autograph!" You had a posse... An entourage if you will... Body guards! If anyone touched you they would have burst into flames! And now...now time goes by and your career is a pile of rubbish. There are no more fans. No more entourage, no posse... Body guards no longer want to guard your tired ass anymore. You're doing smaller venues and the sparse crowd is asking about who you are. The irony is that you STILL think you're hot! Your arrogance turns to anger... Rage even! You demand that people take your autograph! No one can find that "bobblehead" doll they used to have of you. When you come on TV, (after years of being absent from it), viewers are like..."Look, look who's on Carson Daly! It's what's his name?) Yeah! It's sad... but what if you are like me? What if you wanted all of those things to happen? What if you would have traded, including yo' momma, ANYTHING to have experienced that lifestyle and...What if you had those dreams to never materialize... CRAP!

CRAP/ My Journal by Al Brathway

May 25th, Friday/ I channel surf alot. For whatever reason, I like it better than looking at the TV Guide. Everytime I do it and hit a cooking show, I stop to watch. Now I'm not a fan of cooking shows but I always stop when I see one. There is this one guy that always captures my attention. Have you ever seen this brother named G. Garvin? I swear, he tickles all the hell out of me. I like how he does it, "na-mean?" He got this LL Cool J thing goin' on that cracks me up. A quaffed and manicured brotha who is keeping Black America fat... He's like a walking oxymoron. Whatever my opinion of the show, that brotha makes me hungry! When he gets finished w/ his thing, the food looks sooo good, it makes me want to go to a Black cookout and slap some ribs and potato salad down my throat./ I plan to watch his show this weekend because it is Memorial Day weekend. Since I'm not invited anywhere, I'll watch his show and imagine I'm eating myself silly. Maybe I'll put on some rap music and imagine that I have a bunch of "rump shakers" dancing by my imaginary pool! Maybe I'll videotape the party and market it for BET! I'll call it "Black Folk Gone Wild" and become a billionaire. Then I'll "Pimp My Ride" (a'95 Lincoln) and videotape myself standing next to a "rented" Lear Jet and act like it's mine. I'll hit the black clubs and strip joints and throw one dollar bills around. I'll get cardboard cutouts of Black celebs and act like their my friends. I'll videotape myself at a jewelry store and pretend that I'm buying some "bling!" I'll create this whole "mogul" persona and then I'll be invited to go on "Oprah" so that she can validate me! Yeah Dawg! I'm gonna be a star! CRAP!

TRAPPED/ Poem by A. Dacosta Brathway

Mandingo, slave dick like no other,
Circumcised 9 inch, tripod brother
Ignored the sister for the other…
Danced on the grave of your dead mother.

Confirmed black skin does not think brown,
Spouting lyrics so as not to be clowned,
Wearing that constant, perpetual frown,
Standing straight but trying to get down.

Bullshit artist running a con,
White vagina w/ pubic hair blond,
“I’m going in!” with jimmy cap on,
No DNA trace, my word is bond.

I realize I’ve sealed my fate,
My lines rehearsed to clean my slate,
When I get to the “Pearly Gate”
I hope that I don’t burn in Hate!

I am trapped in my dead skin,
I’ve shunned my race, embarrassed my kin,
I "no" not what a mess I’m in,
I wish that I were born again.

CRAP/ My Journal by Al Brathway

May 22nd, Tuesday/ Right now I am looking for work. I have a degree in English Literature and I have experience in basketball. I have traveled and soaked in other cultures. Yet, none of this shit counts towards me getting a job right now. I am frustrated and humiliated, yet my friends think I should do my best to maintain my sense of humor! (They must be sniffing crack! Maybe I should too...) Here is the thing about living in America that the terrorists don't understand. They think that I'm having the time of my life! They are jealous of me having the freedom to be out of work and can't pay my bills. They think that I have (had) the freedom to hobnob w/ the big boys at the World Trade Center and yuck it up everyday. They think that me and the policy makers of America meet for lunch and make decisions they don't care for. They want me to die by their hand because the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner decision (Life in Death decision handed down to the sailors who killed the Albatross was that they had to live on their boat w/out the winds and could not move!) is not a good enough punishment for me! Wanna talk about hell? Paris Hilton can get a job before me and she has no secondary education, no experience, AND a record! How is that for torture? All I've ever done is grow up Black! (Are we having thunderstorms again today?) Here is where the fracture gets compounded. I have no job which means I can't afford a car. (Maybe I'll tell you about the experiences I've had w/ cars sometime.) So, w/out money and a car means I can't have a woman... So now I can't have sex. (I can't even buy it, which is what I would be doing even if I had a girlfriend anyway!) On top of all of this, I have to worry about terrorist plots and sleeper cells as well as the normal crime that takes place on the street because I don't have a car and have to wait for a bus or train or walk! AND, how can I even get a woman riding on a bus? (Have you seen the women who ride buses these days!)She's gonna know that I don't have any money riding on a bus at high noon. And what are the terrorists going to think while they are standing there, waiting for the bus, w/ me? (They'll think that I'm dispensible or course!) CRAP!

CRAP/ My Journal by Al Brathway

May 21st, Monday/ Got up this morning w/ nothing to look forward to but that's everyday."It's another beautiful day in Zamunda." I've already been out. Had to pay a bill. I hate paying bills! Now I have to learn to hate creating them./ In keeping w/ yesterday's theme, I'm picking up writing again. It's great therapy when you don't have a girlfriend to complain about. If I had one I'd be all wrapped up in drama, drama, and more drama... That's not necessarily a bad thing but I like comedy. My life is like a sitcom sometimes. Like the time when I left LA. (This was after "homegirl" threw me out because she said I couldn't write.) I thought that in order to put my life in some semblance of order, it was time for me to marry. "Whoa!" What the hell was going on in my brain to consider that? I thought that I needed a woman in my life... A constant presence of the female persuasion... I needed to "settle down." Settle down? Shit! My life only accelerated after that! There was ALWAYS something to do after I got married. Always somewhere to go. There was always something to buy... Some sale to catch. Shit... It didn't matter whether it was something we needed or not... We had to catch that sale. "Hey, there is a half off sale at the dollar store!" We were there, bright and early to be first in line in some small strip mall in some secluded neighborhood to be first in line. (She had a thing about getting in early to avoid the crowd... at a freakin' dollar store!) And the sex! What sex? There was a twisted irony in this marriage deal. I couldn't have a lot of sex w/ my wife because she didn't want to and there was more chicks interested in having sex w/ me because I was married but I couldn't have sex w/ them because I was married, yet I wanted more sex! Thanks GOD! I never accused you of NOT having a sense of humor! (Sometimes when I hear thunder I think that GOD just screwed over somebody and is having a belly laugh!) So I'm married, horny, miserable and I had moved back East where there is such a thing called Winter. If I were back in Cali going through this situation I might could dig it but... At least out there I could look at beautiful bronze chicks, walking around enjoying the weather and I could dream. However, I was back in Washington, DC, looking at pale women, dressed in business suits, taking on the weight of the world and hating the process and I'm smack dab in the middle of this nightmare! CRAP! (More tomorrow)

Ambiguous By A. Dacosta Brathway

Ambiguous...

The mirror image
of what I see
is what I wished not to be...

Back in the day,

I laid there
knowing not to play there!

Yet I ventured
and now I stay there!

F'ed up line of thinking
has my whole life stinking
w/ the stench
of unsuccess.

Full of misdirection
and pessimistic counsel...
A few days at a time
I smoked an ounce full...

Brain damaged mindset
made me mindful
now I rage in a china shop
like a blind bull...

While talking to myself,
I get an answer,
I hear voices,
yet no one stands there...

...Before me,
But me,
Still wishing I could be
opposite of what I see.

(c) A. Dacosta Brathway