Supplies and such.

So exactly how am I ROAMing? My supplies are mainly can goods with me buying perishables as I can. I try to cook as many meals as possible although every now and again I have to The vehicle is packed carrying the necessities I can cram into them. The vehicle, Blackjack is what I named her, also serves as bed, shelter etc. I have been using public facilities (this is Lake Warren in Hampton County, SC) to shower, use bathroom, etc. As for right now this is how I'm Roaming. I have friends and supporters who have given me places to stay but the majority of my time is spent alone in Blackjack.

I have been told that the hardest part of this trip will be the aloneness of 3am when I'm cold and it's raining and no one I know even knows where I am...so far this has held up to be true. If you were Roaming what would be the hardest part to you?

Supporters Sunday

Simply stated my journey could not have started or continue without the support of others. In fact the very blog your reading is the creation of one of my biggest supporters (Thank you Ms. Alliteration:-) I just want to extend my thanks to all of those who have supported me. For the continuation of our Roam I will use Sundays to recognize supporters of Project:ROAM. As this is the first Sunday there are many people to thank many of which I have given nomenclatures of endearement. You know who you are:-) So I would like to thank all who have assisted me:

Ms. Alliteration - blog designer, cheerleader, cutest spellchecker ever:-)
Tia-mat (think dungeons and dragons) curser outter of doubters
Mama Bird - who reminds me in no uncertain terms to take care of myself
The Elf - who trouble shoots and who got sick taking care of me.
The Bruhz - too many to name but who have provided such support as can be given to a dreamer
My poet family - again too many to name who have done too much to name and continue to.
A very special thanks to Empress K who's gift material and spiritual have injected new courage in me. All given after speaking to me for less than an hour. In fact so many have given so much I cant chronicle it all but please know I will try and that I am extremely grateful to everyone of you.

Culture in the Carolinas

Performed at the Wine Up in Charlotte tonight. It is amazing to see a cultural/artistic community flourishing as it does here. I truly feel that I am witnessing the birth of a Renaissance when I visit Charlotte. Not to take anything away from Bull City and the Triangle, but this area of NC is a cultural explosion in the realms of art and culture much of which is homegrown but some international. (i.e.the world famous Durham Blues Festival among other things) The movement is growing in NC in general. Venues and events abound everywhere from Kinston (Hey Inkstress!), down to Fayetteville, to Wilmington and I'm sure places I don't know but more important than venues is that the integrity of art, and not just spoken word poetry, remains intact. Venues like Mansion 462 in Chapel Hill, Wine Up in Charlotte, Hayti Center (home of the Jambalaya Soul Slam), events like the Royal Slam in Raleigh (C.O.R.E) and Downtown Live ( I think it's called), Spoken word Wednesday's at the 4030 club in Raleigh (not sure of their status right now) as well as the incredible Black Poetry Theater troupe who perform everywhere! (Sup Church?!) exhibit how much art is a part of culture of the Carolinas and it is one of the reason's I am glad to call Durham my home... when I get back that is. As I am traveling and may wind up anywhere the inspiration blows me I would love to hear from the "Roamers", "Cubers", (Shouts to Tiha and Alliterally Alise) or anyone just passing through. What are some venues, events, lakes, mountains, deserts, (u get the nature theme) or sights that need to be seen in your city? (good, bad, ghetto, or majestic....)

Do you know...

...right now at this moment without peeking. What kind/color underwear you have on? Now if you are going on a date later it doesnt count. If you are matching your underwear to your outfit ( I have seen it done enough that I have accepted it) again doesnt count. If your planning on being in any type of situation that may cause your underwear to show or have to be shown (this is mainly for the drinking game/truth or dare clique...or again date night:-) Basically if you chose underwear because you knew someone besides you was very likely to see them and this is why you know what kind of underwear you have on it doesnt count. Now, with those cheaters out of the way do you know what kind/color underwear you have on? Why do I ask? I'm looking for Co-signers:-) Because I didn't. As I was getting into the shower at the campground, undressing as efficiently as one can in a stone building with no heat and cold water spewing at you, I looked in the mirror and paused because instead of the green underwear I thought I was wearing I had on black pair. And this freaked me out, not because I had an extra shower somewhere along the way I'd forgotten about, but because of...well...how can you forget something that close to you? That intimate to you? I contemplated the reason I didnt know and why you might not know is that those things that are closest to us (in more than just a physical way) are not things that we think about when venturing out in our everyday, not taking a shower in a cold bathroom world. We hurry up and get up, dressed, and out the door with not much thought to the closest parts of us. Just on how close we live to work and how long will it take to get there. But we definitely know what we have on the outside - even those who refuse to abide by the dress code of their job or the social compact. Do we feel that what is part of us but no one can see is not as important as what others see because this is how they define us? Do we define ourselves by how others define us? Maybe I just forgot about a shower and should shut up...but do you know what color underwear you have on? (Dont Peek!)

Route 321

Leaving Columbia tomorrow. Heading South. Going to be riding through small towns I have seen many times before as a tween but feel like I will finally see them for the first time. Obstacles and barriers have presented themselves as expected. Did 2 shows in one night, a first for me, sold barely any product. Both venues loved the shows and I was meet after by many who told me how much they enjoyed, were inspired, were touched, etc by the poetry but…well we are in a recession/depression. Money, the quintessential barrier that I have to and God willing will overcome. My brother told me today that I have too much pride (if there is such a thing) and that I have to learn to ask for help. I know he’s right and I have to come to grips with it. Just one more character trait I have to adjust. I remember as a child growing up in the projects in Brooklyn having to go to the store with a note from my mother asking for credit and bearing a list of items. I used to play the dumb, sweet kid acting like I didn’t know what the note said. But I did. The answer wasn’t always yes and I felt like a failure when I had to come back to the house empty handed. The emerging man in me. My pride derives from this and other experiences of poverty. Nothing particularly special just having to swallow pride to survive…and knowing it way too young. We all have similar stories, even those who never wanted for anything, they too have had their trials. My story is nothing special it’s just my story and how/why I came to be who I am. I don’t’ excuse the behavior of rappers/ athletes/ entertainers but I can understand how suddenly having an excess when you previously had nothing could make you act. Anyway, it’s off South. The road calls me.


The road calls me (1st stanza)
The road calls me
A lover’s whisper in my ear
Saying
Come to me
Follow me
Ride me like I’ve never been ridden before
Position yourself between my guiding lines and push
Harder than ever
Don’t look back
Keep your eyes on me
Move faster than the speed of thought
Cause if you think
you wont
But take your time
Cause if you don’t
You’ll miss
the purpose
Don’t fly through the journey
Taste me
Lick asphalt
Kiss concrete
Suck exhaust till exhausted
Then rest your weary bones in my median
Never leave me
They say your running from your demons
But you see them
Face them in the mirror every time you look
Do you see him?
Not a demon but your father
Gone 13 years and yet here
You look just like him…
I started smoking at his bedside beside him
Watching him die of cancer
Lit 2 cigarettes
1 for him, 1 for me
having found the answer
of how to commit suicide
Slowly.

Random Pictures

Do I want to discuss race, heritage and hate?

Not really but whether or not you want to sometimes your forced to. Example: the picture below.

To your right: Confederate War Memorial (big thing w/ the guy on it) behind it (on the pole) the confederate flag behind the flag a truck (integrated work force of city employed landscapers…too easy) behind the truck the South Carolina State Capital Building shelled by Sherman and still bearing the scars. To the left, you have to look hard, it’s blocked by the walk sign The African American Memorial (I’ll take more pics but it’s a wall and table thing put up in the 90’s). In the center 2 white guys waiting to cross the street. Are they racists? Klansmen? Sons of the confederacy? Or liberals who want nothing more than social change and equality for all people? Do they give a damn about any of this race shit? How would you or I know? The answer is we can’t but in the context of this picture what do you think? This is how symbols separate people. Supporters of flying the confederate flag on state grounds (although since the confederacy tried to secede from the union/USA wouldn’t that make the confederate flag a banner of treason flying, by state law, on government property bought with the tax dollars of…awww you know what I mean?) say it is heritage not hate. What’s the heritage? I’m biased of course as a descendant of those who toiled, died under and in twisted turn of events died for that flag. I would not honor those black confederate soldiers by flying it. I would burn it in effigy for a mistake we can never forget as long as it flies. Something so divisive it brought the NAACP down and rallied 50,000 protestors to converge on the capital building calling for it (confederate flag) to come down off top of the state building, which it did, to 15 feet from the ground so we could see it better. Heritage not hate? I would simply interject that to some the Swastika is heritage.

Memories of a Dislocated Yankee

Memories and Heartache

Being in South Carolina brings back ghosts and memories of greatness for me. I moved “Down South” when I was 16 from New York. I’ve been back and forth ever since. A year in NY here 2 years in SC there back to NY for a couple more then to NC for the last 3. I love them both. And hate them both. Brooklyn gave me my swagger and street smarts. SC my common sense and independence. I’ve fought and been shot at in both places. Witnessed pure altruistic love and unsolicited hate in each. It took both to teach me the difference between a lady, a woman and a ________ (fill in the blank) but neither North nor South has satiated my wanderlust in fact the opposite. They are so different from each, not opposite just different, that it makes me wonder what happens West, NW, way north, SW, beneath the border, across the pond, etc. When I lived here I held several different jobs all in the social services field. They all have their own ventricle but one brings back the most vivid recollections. Now I didn’t say pleasant I said vivid and anyone who has worked with bad ass kids knows exactly what I mean…and that I use “bad” in pure endearment. A group home is a strange place. An intermingling of victims and predators. Kids coming from correctional facilities trying to be made ready to successfully re-enter the world. Kids on their way to those same facilities if they don’t get their shit straight. Survivors of you name it that have no one but the hired shepherds to care for them and protect them from dysfunctional families and above said kids. Till they’re 18 at least. It’s not all gloom and doom (I know I sometimes am a bit pessimistic) many of these kids learn and go off into the world as prepared as any hormone charged teen. Some head to college, other’s home, some to the streets. I would bet that statistically we did the same as an inner city high school’s graduating/senior class. There are some stories though that you wouldn’t believe and I cant tell you because 1. HIPAA would hunt me down. 2. It’s not my place. 3. It’s not your business. LOL but as a writer I can attempt to convey the sentiment of the situation. I wrote a piece that seems specific but actually incorporates several incidents, children, and staff members’ stories from my time at the group home. It’s a work in progress and needless to say no names are mentioned.

Counselor
There’s a frame
Hanging on the wall of a counselor’s office and it…is old
Old as Methuselah’s baby clothes
Old as the echoes of the big bang’s boom
Old as babies tapping mother’s chest, to get at mother’s breast and their nourishment
As old and as ancient as this
The frame is chrome but tarnished
The whole right side is rusted
Half the glass’s been busted and removed
The parchment inside is ripped, wrinkled and bruised
Yet somehow, remains whole
It reminds him, of broken children
It reminds him of broken parts of him that he tries to mend
By finding broken children and fixing them
It rarely works
It always hurts
But it’s his work chosen for them
“At risk” children in-group homes
Who’d done nothing to get there on their own except for surviving
Abuse, neglect, unwanted sex, guns, drugs and gang violence
He chose this work, for her
sitting in the counselors office
where hung the frame ever so old
Today she was grown and going home
To take care of the alcoholic mother that put her here
get her 2 little brothers out of foster care
Move to Atlanta
She had a good job there…stripping
She really didn’t want to
But didn’t really care
She’d have her family.
What could the counselor say?
Only the caged know what it means to be free
Only slaves understand what freedom really means
Only the grave can give a body true peace
For her-the counselor feared all 3
He had tried to talk her off this path but failed
So he just listened and looked in her eyes, which looked at the frame
That hadn’t always been this way
It was perfect the day she bought it at the yard sale
with her group home allowance
Given it to him
he shouldn’t have allowed it, but did
Trying to combat the attachment disorder of this kid
Buy building one that was positive
She said she loved him, hugged him
Then went for his zipper, stopping her
He explained her behavior as inappropriate
That he loved her like a daughter or little sis
Perplexed she couldn’t understand this
Cause if he loved her like her father and big brother did
He should show her
Like her father and big brother did
And fuck her
Like her father and big brother did
He turned his back in failed embarrassment
That’s when she grabbed it and hit
The counselor with the frame in the counselor’s office before it was old
Glass shattered she grabbed a piece and stabbed him
He grabbed her hand as she sliced her wrist
Twisting it as her family had twisted love’s image
Twisting till the glass if not her heart was free
He cried for help. She cried “Why don’t you love me?”
Help came
He answered
“I do. Not how you want me too but the way you deserve”
She still didn’t/couldn’t understand
But apologized when she worked up the nerve
At the hospital where they both got stitches
8 apiece
Looking at the frame in silence they reminisced
The frame was chrome but tarnished
Turned green by salty tears
The whole right side i rusted
Mingled blood that had dried for a year
Busted glass and torn parchment
How she’d attacked her attachment fear
Her ride was here
She hugged him, this time appropriately
All it had taken was 16 stitches, 5 medications
and a year of therapy
The counselor watched her leave
While sitting beneath the frame in his office
Busted, rusted and old
Knowing he’d never see her again
And realizing
That he hadn’t chosen this work
This work had chosen him.

What does the color of a church’s door signify?

I’m going to do some research on this one unless someone posts the answer. Why are they not a uniform color? The color of a church’s door usually stands out as something intentionally done in contrast or contradiction to the color of the building. Is it to catch the attention of sinners? A stop sign to remind us where to find redemption or something related to that particular sect of the faith? Speaking of church doors what is meant when the preacher says "the doors of the church are now open/closed"? Probably revealing my heathen but I don’t know so I’m asking (I don’t have WiFi or a laptop at the moment so don’t tell me to google or wikipedia it) Maybe, just maybe I should go to the church with the red door and ask someone inside. Is it still legal to talk to people in our Internet information at your fingertips world? I’ll let you know…or not depending on police response time.

Pit stop from the past....

The club is the best place to people watch. Mildly coaxed by my brothers we went to a new spot tonight. New to me as the last time I did clubs in Columbia is when I managed one. I really didn’t feel the forcefully festive atmosphere but everyone else pretended to so I did as well. We had a typical man night. Drank with the fellas, looked at those who wanted/tried to be looked at, bobbed my head to songs I knew, pretended to know songs I didn’t while bobbing my head.

Changes:

• Daisy Duke’s and low cut blouses replaced by dresses that flow at the top and are tight at the bottom. Kind of a combination.
• Record players replaced by CDJ’s w/ the addition of a laptop.
• Expensive liquor in dispensers instead of free pour
• Women more openly talking to and harassing (as evidenced by the woman standing next to me having her butt double palmed by a passing woman) other women
  

Same:

• Music is still played in sets. New, recent, old, old school, reggae, regional (dirty south in this case), night ends with a slow music set although rap lyrics over R&B beats don’t quite equal a slow jam to me.
• Men will buy a woman a drink then follow her around the rest of the night.
• Women travel in packs and dance together dissuading men from asking.
• The larger the group of the woman pack the sexier they dress.
• Winding and grinding still appear to be the dances of choice
• I still don’t dance

Good to catch up with friends in a familiar place but not where I wanted to be. The road is calling.

ROAMing South

Headed toward Columbia amidst a million thoughts the most negative being "WTF am I doing?" the answer of course coming in abstract ideas of the possibilities of the unknown road. The simple answer being "IDK but I need to do it" and that has been my mantra when common sense or societal conditioning has cast a shadow over me. I have also been caught up in the excitement that others have conveyed to me concerning the trip. Vicarious Voyeurs I will call them and I love them because they are the readers/ watchers yelling at the screen to "do it". I can hear them I think. But enough of that. I drove slow purposely and have discovered that what those crazy environmentalists say is true. If you drive slow (speed limit) your gas mileage improves. Your patience is another story. I drove at or below the speed limit for most of the trip and the car told me that my MPG improved over the trip. I actually started with not enough gas to get to Columbia, SC according to the car and how I usually drive, but driving slower than I usually do got me to the Metro with gas to spare. However, LOL, I couldn’t resist performing a numerological oddity. I drove 77 mph for 77 miles on I-77 at one time passing 77 Corporate Place that was to the right of exit 7 in Charlotte. (That’s when the limit went to 55 but who cares right). I made it to Columbia safe, said a prayer of thanks, and drove to my brother’s house. Parked, sighed and girded. My brother is my fraternity brother and when we are together…well things happen.

How do you stay on track?

First you have to have a destination. Be it a physical one, your goals/dreams and/or things others cant see but are vivid to you. Marriage, a(nother) degree , more money, better job, etc. Then you should plan out your route and…zzzzzzzz! This is the hardest part. The details that we over or under do. I suck at details…bad! but combat this by going back to the big picture and thinking "is what I’m doing at that moment contributing to me getting where I want to be?". Works for the kid. What works for you? Something else that works, simple and even corny, but having a tangible symbol helps. For this journey I have a compass given to me by a dear friend but anything can work. A calendar/ whiteboard/ rock/ picture/ shit a post-it doesn’t matter. For those visual (meaning men specifically but anyone) it’s a good reminder of where your trying to go. Really helps when you don’t have a GPS.

Barriers

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t think so. Ever plan out a date for a Friday night? You have the whole route and schedule in your head. Leave work. Hit the liquor store. Get gas from the station with the car wash and wash the car. Make your call to whoever to set things up. Get home shower and dress (already have your outfit picked out) and then meet up with whomever and then…do it. Do it. Do it till you’re satisfied. Whatever “it” is. BUT everything depends on you getting off on time? I don’t have to say what happens but it’s like your job knows the exact day you have something up your sleeve and screws you over. (feel free to add your own expletive in place of “screw”) How easy is it to apply this scenario to life itself? Pretty damn easy! “You make plans and God laughs,” Somebody somewhere said. I think they were wise or something but it generally applies. I wont pretend to have the answer or strategy for addressing the barriers of life. As an over thinker and under “doer” frustration follows me, or used to, I’m doing more “doing” now to combat frustration. Anyway, there are 2 events that I’m performing at while in Columbia. One is at the Art Bar the other at Hush both downtown and both on Tuesday. Meanwhile I’m writing and thinking ,and drinking but that’s another blog.

The Road is Calling

The road calls me
A lover's whisper in my ear-saying
Come to me
Follow me
Ride me like I've never been ridden before
Position yourself between my lines
Push harder than you ever have
Move faster than the speed of thought
Cause if you think you wont
But take your time
Cause if you dont you'll miss
The journey
When your weary
Rest your bones in my median
Never leave me
Taste me
Lick asphalt
Kiss concrete
Swallow me whole
They'll say your running from demons
But I know your running to them

Additions

Tomorrow I will be on the road. The blog will continue as I relate experiences and send photos to the manager. Thank you lady. Video and audio will also go up. until they do here is something for followers of the blog.

Life’s End
How far away it sometimes seems
The Island where I keep my dreams
Through seas of pain
And raging calm
And dancing flames
Within the storm
Where sparkling embers
Swish and fly
Then fall to earth
And smoke and die
Where lonely trees
Primp and bow
Where love is life
And life is now
Where Blooming blossoms
Bless beneath
And lightning bites
With thunder teeth
Where misty tears
Fall
So sweet
And all that is
Is at your feet
Where grapes of wrath
Are far from reach
And silence turns
And jostles sleep
Where clouds unfold
And hold you tight
Where the best of friends
Are day
And night
And one step
Can lead
Your soul astray
And the next
Can send you
On
GOD’s way
Teetering
I stand
At life’s end
And close my eyes
And wait…For wind

See you on the Road! (pray for me)