January 2005 Archives

Today a friend and I headed over to Brooklyn to visit an accuaitance. We were welcomed with a glass of wine that was refilled through out the night and that of a wonderful surprise behind the polished remnants of Carol Gardens industrial past. My friend’s house was so hot. He actually renovated an old burned down bakery into that habitable work of art you see above you. He kept it true to the tradition of sweet outcomes that this buildings history lived up to. I was a beautiful space. It had everything that I would ever want in a home. It boosts giant ceilings, sky lights, patio, roof top patio, great art, tasteful décor, beautifully thought out lines and ingenious use of color and light. The sharing of his space was a rewarding experience that gets mad brownie/aesthetic points.

Me and my boy Anthony. Damn, he can sing! He is the life (and loudest thing)
of the party. Hes got a lot of heart for a little mother fucKer and can take
down a bottle of rum faster then anyone I've ever seen. He is blessed and I
know he is going to be huge one day. Not in height though. lol

"I see creative expression as a confirmation of the God within us, he the “creator”, we, made in his image and he, in ours. Embrace the cycle, perpetuate it."

This morning I woke up and ran to the bathroom. When I checked my reflection I noticed that the same puffiness that had appeared last night on my upper left eyelid was still present. I couldn’t believe my eye! How could this happen to me on a Friday! What was it? Would this affect my level of sociability this weekend and confine me to self-conscious purgatory? Was I to hide out for the next two days like the Hunchback of Notre Dame? I preoccupied myself with mirrors and worries and then I did what any concerned Metrosexual with health insurance would do. I finagled a same day appointment with an optometrist at New York’s, Eye, Ear & Throat Institute. A fifteen dollar co-pay later, I was off with the reassurance that it would not turn into a sty and a prescription to ensure it. As a sincere apology to my eye who I cursed all morning, despite its having brought me so much joy throughout the years, I took me and eye to the new Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) for some visual eye candy. Every Friday between the hours of four and eight admission is free. After a short ten minute line, I was wondering a world of innate desire for expression and architectural marvel. There were endless collections of beautifully cured works by artist from different places and periods. I lost myself in Post-Modernist blurs, abstract swirls, Renoir shadows, Picasso blues, organic Nagushi, mobile Calder, syphilitic Van Gogh, symmetric Lloyd Wright, and the surrealistic stampede of New Yorkers looking everywhere but where they were walking.

Sorry used a 3 mega pix. Its a cute shot though. Isn't she cute?

This morning I woke up at noon. I brushed my teeth, played a Miles Davis CD, drank some hot chocolate and fell asleep again. The second coming was at three PM. My cat’s tail whipped back and forth slapping me in the face with each whip. It was a silent protest to a food forgotten afternoon. She looked back when I opened my eyes as if she heard my eyelashes separating. I bid her good morning and after a short little stretch she forgave my all-too-soon of a catnap and headed towards my face for some mutual head rubbing. I looked outside and what would otherwise have been grapevines, peppers, and bright tomatoes in the summer was a densely white barren uninviting place. I was expecting Chewbacca and Hans Solo to ride by in a snow glider at any moment. I thought to myself how much of a boring fucking day it was going to be. After all it was a “state of emergency” but I figured that after all of the terrorist alerts of the summer, they were probably once again crying wolf and trying to condemn us to home bound boredom. So I then trooped it to Central Park with my best friend for some picture taking and I ended up having my first ever sledding experience. Wow! I had a great time. I hit a tree three times, good thing that it had hay around its base. I also knocked some poor guy, who looked as if he already had a bad run, right on his ass, where he then got kicked in the head by some kid doing fifty in an unregistered sled, poor guy but better him then me. Central Park was beautiful, it was simply amazing. It was the stuff of post cards. I almost want to cancel my meeting tomorrow just to be able to get some more trips down that hill or maybe find one that’s even steeper or higher. What an amazing time! I must have zoomed down that hill like fifty times. Needless to say, my ass is killing me. “State of Emergency”, my ass, well, yeah, I guess that exactly what it’s in.

And so, it snowed and snowed and then, it snowed a little more. After which a Governor in a heated Albanian palace declared a "state of emergency." For someone who was born in Havana and raised in Miami I was a pretty worried. I went out for some food to a grocery store that looked as if it had just been ransacked by a mob in preparation for World War III. I saw the biggest snowman ever it was good 5 feet tall and 5 or 6 wide. It was being shaped by a Mexican father and his two kids who seemed a bit annoyed at the size of their father’s monument to himself. The children complained of cold and fatigued to which he made some incomprehensible Neanderthal like sound and then, said, “keep shoveling”, in Spanish. I felt bad for the children and wondered if this was karma for having supervised slaves in the construction of some Aztec temple centuries ago. My ears got so cold that they kind of hurt. On the bright side my feet were warm because I got to wear my new Columbia, Bugabootoo boots. Great fucking snow kicks! The snow on the ground was untouched and I felt bad about walking on it and leaving my impressions but that’s what life is all about right? So I left my temporary mark on a night I will never forget. Everything was beautiful, clean and unburdened. The snow on everything caught the light like little sponge prisms that illuminated the night with a soft glow. I forgot that I was cold long enough to enjoy the walk and even take a few pictures. I then wondered who the hell was going to shovel up all this magic because you know it’s going to be ugly on Monday when New York goes to work.

01. 02. 03.

01. Outside my house
02. Footsteps
03. Aztec karma

Disregard
All past experiences
The sighs
The moans
The acting out of warm hellos
A past that’s always there
Forever which may never come
Heated nights
Lazy mornings
Our talks of dreams
Realities left yearning
The constant crucifixion
Jealousy
Screams
Our lack of intuition
Words to songs
Those of lies
Heartfelt tears
Forgotten nights
Our displaced fears
Roles
Parts
Daily masks
The struggle
The hope
Emotional tasks

Disregard

Cause only then can we outlive
The reasons why our webs we weave
The “why” to which that was never said
The just because we shared my bed
Disregard and try to seek
Why an end can seem so bleak
If left with love
Don’t let it end
Dreams come true and hearts will mend

-Yusef ©2004

The sun crept through the window this morning brightly, yet ashamed of its self. It was like that of a candle, in a large cold room. Trying to warm and comfort a space that was beyond its scope. I lay in the bed, peeking from underneath a warm comforter, lamenting the sun’s defeat. I wondered when old man winter would retreat for a time and allow the cold ambivalence of New York City to break away from its frigid state to the less hurried welcoming faces of spring and summer. Coiled into a ball beneath the plumage of hundreds of unfortunate fowl, I imagined myself a thousand miles away. I found myself on the shores of a warm unfamiliar beach where the smell of ocean and coconut oils complimented, this most auspicious moment of imaginary delight. Within minuets of my private paradise escape, somewhere in the distance, my cell phone rang a constant reminder of an urgent text message that required my attention, there was the annoying phone call from some God-awful telemarketing group, and then my alarm started to go off. Well, so much for my suspended moment of disbelief. I was soon on the cold floor, coughing, quickly losing the morning erection, trying not to trip over an already fat enough cat that while begging for food, kept crossing my steps. My bathroom was reminiscent of an igloo and I a displaced Eskimo suffering frostbite and shrinkage.

The big chill has come over us and swept us beneath a cold white blanket of hurried steps, almost unnoticeable smiles and the layering of garbs over bodies already weighed down by deffense mechanisms and indifference. Are emotions seasonal? Why are there so many invisible liners and barriers keeping us from the warmth of the outside world? People can never really seem to say what they feel or really mean. It would seem that interpretation is a shallow pool beneath icicles of intention awaiting salted moments of defrosted warmth, layered beneath parkas and goose bumps.

I still love you and always will.

Yet another shamless act of self promotion.

The other day someone took the time to write the following:

ur stupid poems do not make any sense. a lot of blah blah blah. They just reflects and mirrors how shallow you are as a person who is self absorbed. You are such an ego maniac it is sickening. All the peeps who post their comments reply only to your looks and not ur work. or shall i say reply good things cuz of your looks, just to brown nose and be up ur ass. U have projected urself so high that you forgot how to be humble and kind hearted! These people who comment dont know you, they only go on the perception they see in those pictures. U aint gonna be cute forever son, reap what you sow nigga!! grow up and stop playing with them damn legos! Im sure u wonder who from your past could possible write this hateful stuff. who were u shady too? Too many to reflect on? U'll never know. who knows we can be rubbing elbows and u would never know its me the hater,lol. u see,i too can be a hyprocrate. I learned it by watching u. Rethink who are your friends yusef! later!

To which I took the time to reply:

Well, let me start my stating that your email was a lot of “blah blah blah.” Please get a life and stop paying so much attention to mine. I am neither shallow nor self absorbed. I just have a lot more love then many people do for themselves. Am I an ego maniac? No. I am very aware of my faults, short comings and insecurities because I too am human not just some obscure webpage layout of nice pictures. However, at the end of the day I am my biggest fan because the reality of so many hateful mothers fuckers as yourself, is as sure as the time you took to write what you did behind the safe cover of your internet walls. Please know that the majority of the people who have commented on my site are close friends who know me outside of this rather impersonal setting. In regards to the Legos, I love them. I have many little pleasure I enjoy in life, for example, my Legos or the attention and time I get from losers like you, both make me smile. You are right, by the way, in regards to my looks not lasting forever, but trust my wrinkles will be that of laugh lines, which I gladly will wear as a testament to a life well lived with little regrets . By the way I thank you for today’s laugh and contributing to my laugh line fund. Hopefully, you will be as fair weathered as I find myself and not find yourself too loose at the end. (Pun intended) Lastly, no, I do not care to question who from my past this could be. You are probably someone who I allotted less attention to, then what you hoped to receive. Did you let me hit it on the first night and not get a call back? Did my lack of attention wound your ego? Did I not placate to your Western sense of etiquette and afford you the hand shake you so desperately needed? It’s part of life. It has happened to me and everyone else a hundred times. It’s the gamble and uncertainty of living that makes it worth living. My coming to terms with not liking you, caring to develop any kind of relationship to you, finding you incompatible, stupid, a bad fuck, someone I would rather not stand next to or just accepting that life and happenstance took us down separate roads, does not make me a shady person, just comfortable with my choices and that of not having given you (who ever you are) the time. Do the same, get off my dick and liberate yourself. Trust me there are other people out there who would give you the time/attention which you desperately require, who are perhaps more compatible with and best compliment your social circle. I obviously am neither. Live your own life and share it with others who reciprocate your feelings/needs in the long run it will be a lot more rewarding then wasting time criticizing others.