Thursday, January 25, 2024

Old Love

I thought I needed Tina, but Sasha loved me more.

I thought I had to be rich, but Coco loved me when I was poor.

In deep thought I reminisce about Trina but I can’t forget about Serena.

What will become of my love spell with Rose?

She’s my old love but she keeps me on my toes.

Ashley is cute and Naomi is too.

I helped her up in the hallway when she tripped over her own shoe.

So who will it be this Valentine’s Day? I guess I’ll call up my old love just to hear what she has to say.

Old Love.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Rainy Days

The sky is gray and the rain is falling so I paint a picture of worms crawling. 

The ground is wet and as the trees sweat from the looks of it Mother Nature has made a complete mess.

Rainy Days

Sunday, January 21, 2024

The New OG

I’m the new old guy. While young, everything was brand new: The women, the money, and even the love.

I’m the new old guy.

While young, I could jump, throw, swing and dance. I’m the new old guy.

I fell out of a chair today and my kids just left me on the floor, with the little fight that I had left in me, I got up and whipped their asses one last time.

I’m the new old guy. 

I still got it.

I’m the new OG.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Radio Waves

 I had just driven through one of the biggest snowstorms in the history of all Ohio. I remember it like it was yesterday, me, little old Wesley West slipping and sliding in my navy-blue Charger. To this day I have no clue how I made it into the Cleveland Radio station. I drove all the way from Youngstown Ohio. While walking into the station I noticed that the building that housed the station was in the middle of nowhere and there were some strange things going on in the studio. Signals were going in and out and headed into Black History month I knew racial tensions were pretty high, but on air you could talk about anything if that is where the topic lead you. I then heard screams coming from the elevator on my way to the restroom, it was a strange day. Realizing that I had no on-air routine before the show, I figured I'd better do something quick and that's when my phone rang. Ironically, I'd left Youngstown early in the storm and still managed to reach the station ahead of time. While hearing the voice on the other line it was my friend's ex-husband from when I used to live in a county called Columbiana. He laid it into me about some business that I'd done with his daughter and until this day I have no clue what I did wrong, but I had to end the conversation quickly because my time to go on air was running short. There I stood in the station; I had just got a divorce and my grandfather had just died, that's when I heard a blast of static and one of the engineers cursing. He quickly rushed from one hidden room to another to fix a jammed signal. It appears that he was pissed off because the show host before mine randomly didn't show up and they had to find a program to replace the dead air. I also noticed a chair literally sitting in the middle of a broken studio glass window. In the midst of the madness, I heard the program director had just fired one of the studio hands for masturbating allegations while in the studio. I also heard that the chair got thrown through the window because someone violated FCC rules and uploaded porn and foul language that played on the airwaves in an attempt to bring the station down. Apparently, the host who threw the chair got upset because he owed the station eighteen thousand dollars and they threatened to sue him if he didn't pay his bill. Headed into my studio booth, I had five minutes left before I went on the air, and I had no clue why there was a noose hanging from the ceiling of the studio across the hall. I thought it was some kind of subliminal message, but I was wrong, one of the engineers told me that they had a live taping of a rodeo exhibit earlier that day and it was actually a rope that was left behind for the host as a souvenir. I couldn't help but noticing them laughing due to the look on my face. Spooked or not, I still had to do a show. The engineer then kindly entered my booth and thanked me for coming in. I guess the radio business had been taking a huge hit and was literally fighting for its life to stay afloat and my show counted. After the conversation, in the midst of an influx of side drama that I'd been dealing with, it almost felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. That night I had to talk about literally everything that had been going on in the world through the radio waves. The lines were lighting up like crazy, and I wasn't getting paid a dime, I was feeding it all to the station. After the show, I gave my board operators some extra cash and soon realized that I too had to file for bankruptcy just to keep the radio tower up and the digital computer signals percolating. While in the food lines, dreaming of my next gig, I couldn't help but notice that even though I left that station, I didn't lose my audience. Some of them even found me and gave me a place to stay. I even got an offer from another station. I had no clue who was listening, but I guess when I thought my story didn't matter, I was wrong. In the end, we all thought the radio tower was falling, but we all picked it up together and kept the radio waves flowing. We talked about everything, and when there was nothing else to talk about, we made some stuff up. Our radio signal was so strong that aliens came down just to conversate on air with us. Spirits were literally in the studio, some from heaven and some from hell.  

Radio Waves.    

Sunday, January 14, 2024

The Dream Thesis

If I were to tell you that this was it, I would be lying. How do you perceive yourself and others? What are your values? Some of us have characteristics that others may not have but friends there is another world. A world worth reaching for. A world where nothing is impossible and dreams do come true. A world that can’t exist without us. We all play a role. Black, white, and even brown. On this Martin Luther King Jr. day imagine a world where even the characters in reality must stand beside each other. The victims, the assassins, and even the investigators. A world where the spirit rises like the sun and the body elevates to a higher frequency. In this dream world we find out that all of the hatred in our hearts was for nothing. We were ignorant of our own future and enemies of our own survival. A world fixed with people joining hands and reaching for a common ground. In this thesis paper this world is all how you imagine it and the content of your character has everything to do with the magic in turning a dream into a reality. Friends, kings come and kings go, but we now live in a world where our very own individual dreams can become a reality. There is no law against dreaming, it’s a gift from God the creator and it’s yours. Dream on dreamers.

The Dream Thesis

Saturday, January 13, 2024

The Wealth Thesis

 Are the ultra rich my enemy? What can I learn from people who obtain massive amounts of wealth? This Martin Luther King Jr. day I’ve come to question the poverty gap and the misunderstanding between two schools of thought. The wealthy mind set is far different from the poor mindset. A smart rich man has one flaw and that is his fear of becoming poor. Each mindset has specific characteristics, the poor man may seek comfort in understanding empathy while the rich man may always be on guard for those after his wealth. Each mindset can test the human motive. A poor man can learn how to grind to become rich while a rich man may have to teach his children certain values that he can’t because he’s not poor. Fragility and skill are also factors because to get the tools you need there has to be a fair trade and if a poor man has nothing to offer he could become a pawn on a rich man’s chessboard. Equality is the balance of power in this thesis paper. In Dr. King’s case, he sacrificed his will to live comfortably as the ultimate investment in the future. Although his battle was rough, he chose a tactic of marching and taking the beating. This was a clever tactic also used by boxers with endurance. Wear out your opponent then win in the last round by knocking him or her out. It’s a gamble because your army will have to fight without a leader in the end. In the case of Dr. King, his army literally was left with no choice because many of them were poor but in numbers they were rich. In present time, majority rule may see this and continue to wipeout their opponents, but in what I call the Jesus strategy, the poor man has a secret weapon, one key factor to defy all odds, the poor man has the spirit of “God.” His fighting in not coming from nutrients, but pure grit and hunger. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain even if he has to die for it. 

The Wealth Thesis 

Thursday, January 11, 2024

The Labor Thesis

 All we had left was work. We had no safety net, no savings and a few degrees that we never used. Martin Luther King Jr. day was just around the corner and the world hated us for working. We watched people literally wasting time and money while we worked on Dr. Kings’s holiday. I swear, we worked so hard that we developed a reputation around the entire city for being the only business in town under paid but over worked. Supervisors on the workroom floor began complaining to their staffs that they should be more like us. My wife and I cleaned cars, passed out flyers, ran community events, and even fed the homeless with little to no money left over for ourselves, we literally slept at our business, but together, we were happy. Together, we became the face of working class families, business owners, and the American dream. We became an inspiration to others like us. Our thesis paper was centered around our life. We’d been victims of crime and violence our entire life and became accustomed to using our time wisely; in fact, we made it a habit. Our focus was turning negative vibes and energy into something more constructive, “work.” I’m sure Martin would say, “Good job, dreamers.”

The Labor Thesis