BlackMan Time

Archive for July, 2007

I’m not sure how many times I’ve said this before but anyone who describes themselves as “cool” is not cool!

Being cool is an attitude and the way how you come across to others. It’s not your interpretation of how you come across to others! If you are actually conscious about how you come across others then you’re probably a big poser or someone with some insecurity issues!

I bring this up because someone asked me some time ago “why are you so cool, BlackMan?” I was actually genuinely surprised by the question because I have never thought if I was cool or not. I was just basically me; what you see is nearly what you get!

Anyway, I replied “I wasn’t aware I was cool. I’m only just trying to stay alive, get along with the rest of the world, find true love and be happy in the knowledge that someone likes me!” Well, it wasn’t in those exact words but the meaning was similar.

With that my friend kissed me. Passionately!

To be honest, at that moment I thought that act and she herself were the coolest things on the planet!

More and more I’m bumping into people of African descent (Black people!) who feel that in order to be accepted by their white colleagues they have to prove/show how similar to white people they are. This is a continuous source of bemusement for me!

I know I’ve already touched on a similar topic about fitting in but I just had to say some more on the topic.

I always thought it was obvious that people, regardless of their colour, are more alike than they are different! This is a given, right?

Secondly, there is nothing phonier, at least to me, than a Black person ‘acting white’ or taking on a persona that tries too hard to be liked by someone else. It smacks of something; desperation and insecurity comes to mind!

I’m sure the derogatory term ‘Uncle Tom’ is meant to lambaste people acting this way, but who the hell am I do judge what Blackness is and who should be considered worthy to wear that identifier as a badge of cultural respect?!

Honestly though, but don’t you ever wonder why some people are so afraid of being themselves? Why do they need to appease others in order to fit in? Personally, I am happiest when others feel the need to try and be like me, rather than the other way round!

A confident person doesn’t need to conform to appease anyone. Maybe that’s the ‘problem’ right there. Perhaps those who are bending over backwards to receive acceptance from others are simply insecure, weak or just not assertive enough.

I’m sure you’ve got your own views. Care to share them?

Rather reluctantly I have forced myself to update my audio-visual gadgets!

In recent weeks I have acquired a number of stuff and the list has not ended yet! Actually owning them is not the buzz for me: it’s the process of how I get them which is the key thing!

I won’t go into this process except to say that all my purchases are legal and are bought from reputable companies which issue tax receipts and warranty!

But, after acquiring these items I muse (and amuse!) myself with the fact that I can actually only use one (maybe two) of these items at a time. My life has not been significantly improved (or worsened) because I have them. But, I guess it’s good to know they are there when I need them.

This is all rather surprising really because I am usually someone who prefers to buy stuff because I actually need them rather than because I can!

You already know how much I hate the smell of bacon and anything that comes from the pig, right? Well, on Wednesday my sense of smell was assaulted by the stinking stuff wafting up from my neighbour’s apartment below.

The only way I could prevent myself from throwing up was to leave the building and go for a walk in the park. This had both plus and minus points.

The plus points are that I got some well needed exercise and fresh air; well, as fresh as central London at around 7:30 a.m. can dish up anyway! It also filled me with that much needed feel good factor!

The bad points are that I was totally intolerant to my neighbour’s cooking when I probably annoy them just as much with my loud music! They have never complained once and in fact on occasions have actually come up and asked me to replay a particular track! So, from this point of view, I guess I am unreasonable.

I actually don’t think I am because bacon smell early in the morning is such a great source of irritation. I could never get used to it.

I can’t think of anymore bad points…

Talk about speed! I pre-wrote a blog entry titled Hard To Write for July 25, 2007 and set it to become public at precisely 08:00 a.m. that morning. By around 08:25 a.m. when I checked it online Google had already trawled the BlackMag Blogs site and picked up the blog entry! What are these guys on?

If you say speed then you’d be correct, of course.

Back in the day Netscape and Yahoo were the guys who showed this kind of enthusiasm the most. They were corporate but they acted very nimble on their feet and responded to challenges and opportunities in the blink of an eye.

All this stopped, of course, when enormous sums of money were pumped into these kinds of companies and they had major investors’ interests to consider.

This is why it is such a really pleasant surprise that Google, earth’s most famous internet company, can move like a gazelle while having the appearance of a rhinoceros!

Big up yourselves, Google!

I think some governments, local authority councils, boroughs and judiciaries exist only to extract as much money out of ordinary people as they can, without really helping them.

This thought ran nakedly through my mind as I sat in my car watching a traffic warden enjoying his job putting a penalty notice on a motorist’s car.

What really is that about? It’s much more than simply giving a motorist a ticket! It’s the deliberate sticking up a motorist at gun/knife/offensive weapon’s point and demanding money!

How about charging someone because he happened to be driving in a certain area in broad daylight? You could call that highway or daylight robbery!

It’s getting so bad that I have to carefully consider every car journey I make through central London before I make them. At any point I could be charged a £50 congestion charge, snapped for going too fast in a particular area or ticketed by the aforementioned parking meter attendant, if I park in an area designated a “no park zone.”

My basic gripe is that we pay too much money towards services that do nothing to improve our lives. I think we are badly served by our local authorities and it’s about time they actually make some of the money to extort from us to better use.

What do you think?

Discipline is one of the key traits that anyone who desire to be a writer needs to have if they are to succeed in this business. This is especially true if you’re attempting to write a substantial project which requires perseverance as well as continuous slog in order to complete it.

Typical examples of this would be writing a full length novel or a feature length screenplay!

I can understand why some people prefer to write short stories, poems and even essays: you can generally complete these in one session. It is hardly the done thing to complete a novel in one sitting. In fact I actually don’t know anyone who has done that, but I’m sure at least one person has!

This is where the discipline comes in: you have to pace and dedicate yourself to completing that piece. The crucial thing is setting a timetable and an agenda and working towards it. If a feature length screenplay is 90 pages long and you can write 5 pages a day you’re looking at a minimum completion time of around 18 days!

Ah, if only it was that simple!

I have tried not to look back on those situations I found myself in where I was looking directly at my enemy who was pretending to be my friend. I reasoned that I was playing fool to catch wise, to quote a famous Jamaican saying.

Maybe it was simply a case of me keeping my enemies closer while I already had my friends close! Either way I remember a very recent moment when this one particular person I was working with shook my hand and wished me luck, even though he had been instrumental in the spreading of some malicious rumours about me.

The thing is I knew at the time that he was this kind of character but I played along with him and appeared to accept his well wishes with dignity.

Deep down inside me the reality was different! I detested his treachery but I hated myself even more for playing along with it. My natural instincts would have been to tell him to go jump off a cliff. Or possibly something even worse than that!

This is the bit that gets me: that I didn’t say/do something like that. If I have regrets it’s that I don’t act on my own instincts more…

Maybe it’s the way of the world now that almost every big company, famous individual and upcoming débutante is announcing their intention to go green! It’s getting so nauseating that I really want to vomit all over their little show!

It’s not that I am anti-green; far from it. In fact it’s precisely because I believe in conserving energy and preserving the earth’s natural resources that I can quite easily see through some of the falsies who are just jumping on a bandwagon because it is expedient to do so.

In a nutshell I am green because I practice it today the same way I have been doing since birth. I didn’t become green conscious just because some film told me our environment is decaying because of depletion of its ozone layer! Neither did I become green because I attended some open air stage show sponsored by a large corporate entity, which burned up more energy in its production than switched people on to the green message.

I just find the whole green thing gut-wrenchingly irritating and many of those getting involved only seem to be doing so to safeguard their social standing or political onus.

Pass me the sick back. Again!

I must be one of the few people alive who have not ready a Harry Potter book! However, when it comes to the films I have to admit I have seen around three or four. My mind is confused because I have this tendency to get two of them mixed up!

I went along to see the first one out of curiosity and found I actually quite enjoyed it. There were lots of people telling me that I shouldn’t because it was witchcraft, obeah, and pure duppy business, etc. There were looking out for my best interest, I think.

Anyway, I wasn’t put off by such doom sayings so I went along to a further three episodes.

At times it’s been a weird experience to be the only man (and Black at that too!) above 20 in a cinema watching a movie of this nature. For the latest one, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”, I was accompanied by a 13 year old niece and her mother.

This is a much more grown up Potter. So, why do I have no shame in admitting watching Harry Potter? Simple: I need to know what’s going into people’s heads! Or at least that’s the writer’s reason!

I suspect the real reason is somewhere between me secretly being under author J. K. Rowling’s spell and I probably actually do rather enjoy watching films. But that’s another story!