Let Me Put Y'All On To Something

You ever wanted to know what I watch online or what I'm checking up on everyday as part of my routine? No? Let's rephrase this. You ever wondered why I think the way that I do or what influences my seemingly crazy, yet always rational thought process? Well maybe this will help give y'all some insight.

This brotha's name is Jay Smooth & he does a video blog called illdoctrine, which I have been a big fan of for the past couple months or so. I swear, I've seen a bunch of his videos & I don't think I've disagreed with him once. Remarkable, since I swear people make feel like I'm an alien sometimes (no Lil Wayne) when I try to kick some knowledge to em. He's just a down to earth guy, who's a huge hip-hop head (wow, alliteration) & uses rationality to see through the BS on a daily basis. Check out the video above & then check out his website illdoctrine.com.

Some of my favorite blogs of his include: A Beginner's Guide To "No Homo" & How To Tell People They Sound Racist

Oh How I Love Us's

Oh Black people, how I love thee. I say this on two different fronts: a) because I miss my African-American brethren & b) because I've recently felt the need to defend my brothas & sistas from unjust stereotyping. First off, I'll say that I'm truly missing African-Americans right now. I just need a break, even if its just a small one, to talk to some Us's who'll understand me in a way that these other folks can't. There's just a different feeling & bond amongst African-Americans, which I probably couldn't do justice to by trying to explain in a blog, so I won't belabor the point. Now, there are a solid number of African immigrants in Dublin. For those of you who've been keeping up with my blog, you know that I found a nice African barbershop & they hooked me up the with a decent haircut. But I'll tell you this, there is a difference between Africans & African-Americans that I knew a little about back home, but its a lot more pronounced when you're over in Dublin & you've the only African-American throughout the trip. These North African immigrants obviously come over here with their own customs, their language, & their common bond from being immigrants over here, & while they've been nothing but nice & courteous to me whenever we cross paths, I can just feel a difference. I apologize if I'm unclear or underwhelming in my analysis, its just hard to put it into words.

*Side note: If it was unclear as to why I'm saying both Black people & African-Americans, its to draw a distinction. Black people refers to whole diaspora while African-Americans would obviously be the brothas & sistas born in America*

But now on to the real reason I'm writing this post. Part B: Defending Black People. So, I recently had a conversation with a friend on Facebook just catching up with one another. I hadn't seen this person in a long time & turns out that said person had transfered out of the AUC to go to a predominantly White southern school. I inquired as to why said person wanted to transfer there, not even as a pointed question, I just thought it was a slightly random choice even for a predominatly White school. This person responded by saying that this other school was ranked in the top 20 universities by US News & World Report, while the other AUC school wasn't ranked in the top 100 (I double checked that statement & this AUC school is in the top 75) . I responded by saying that I can see the rationality behind the choice, even though I wouldn't agree with strictly using those polls to make your college decisions & we'll agree to disagree on those ideals. In response to me saying that, this person explained the choice in more detail by saying that they had enough of people caring about "things peope worry about down there, popularity, who's dating who, who has the most this or that", all of which is vaild to a certain extent, but then the person said they would rather not deal with Black females & that the stereotypes of them were "very true".

Let me clairify something that I omitted earlier, just to preempt some confusion. The friend I was chatting with is a Black female who transfered away from Spelman. Y'all know if a brotha woulda made that last comment, it woulda completely changed the story.

Anyway, I read this last comment & was immediately up in arms. I was ready to just go in on this young lady & really give her one of these intellectual smackdowns that we almost specialize in down in the AUC. But I thought about it some more & it turned out to be more of a sad statement to me rather than an inflammatory one. I thoughtfully wrote a response expressing my disappointment in such a statement & that I felt that she had missed most of what the AUC really has to offer. Now, I'm not gonna get up on a high horse & say that there was no basis for her to feel the way that she did. In the AUC, you can easily (extremely easily) fall prey to the fast life of Black Hollywood. Its a small community with everybody hustlin to achieve & money is huge motivating factor, so it can be extreme frustrating dealing with the "baller" & "stuntin" & "swagger" mentalities that are developed. But come on, what school ain't got people trying to get rich or a bunch of rich kids running around flaunting their wealth? You can't tell me it's just a Black thing & even more to the point, its frankly your own fault if you failed to find a circle of friends who aren't into that. There are a lot of people who aren't solely concerned with keeping up the Joneses & ballin out every weekend. There are a lot of intellectuals, scholars, & just real down to earth folk in the AUC & greater Atlanta community, so you find your niche & be happy with it. I'm speaking from experience on that one, cause I can't afford to keep up with the Joneses & I can't morally agree with parts of that lifestyle, so I made a conscious decision to find like minded people to spend my time with. And guess what? It wasn't that hard.

As for the second part of her rationale, which was the really saddening part, where do we start? I can understand not wanting to be around a whole bunch of people of you're same sex. I'm not into the machismo & pissing contests that come from being around a bunch of testosterone (which speaks to why I'm a drama major w/ classes at Spelman). But I would never cast off Black men as being people I don't wanna deal with as a whole. That is ludicrous & a sign of self-hatred, because as much as we might try to act alone, we're all in this together (especially as African-Americans). Now, stereotypes come from a true place. Something actually had to happen truthfully for the stereotype to stick & last. So, there are lazy & ignorant men in the AUC as well as gold digging, hypersexual females in the AUC. But if you come down here & stay for a year, and after that year your lasting image is that 1% of black life that unfortunately succumbs to those sterotypes, you've been blinded. I can't even quote Malcolm X & say that you've been hookwinked & bamboozled, because you chose not to see. Nobody did anything to fool you, you closed your 2 physical eyes & ignored your 3rd eye vision. And if that is the case, I can't be mad at a person for not allowing themselves to see. I can only pity them & pray that one day that person will open their eyes, especially that 3rd eye, to see through the madness.

While I admit to being one of the first to complain about the flaws in the AUC, never will I turn my back on the concrete fact that Black excellence is displayed there every single day. And as a Black person who knows how difficult it can be living amongst a very White population, I cherish the opportunity to be educated, inspired, & loved by other Black folks. Having the AUC experience has only enhanced my desire for & love of diversity in general because I now know more about my own. My history, the legacy that I have to carry on, the path that has been set for me. So, I guess my point is love yourself & love your people because otherwise you won't be able love others or realize who loves you too.

Peace & blessings, y'all! Shouts out to the A town!

A Lesson In Theater Etiquette

One of my favorite parts about this IES program is that we get to see a lot of top notch theater as part of our Contemporary Irish Drama class. The Dublin Theater Festival is going on right now, and with that being a major festival, we're lucky to be able to see some its biggest shows. I've already seen UK legend Michael Gambon (Dumbledore from Harry Potter for us US folks) & we're getting to see Fiona Shaw (she's like the Meryl Streep of theater) perform next month , so its an experience I'm extremely grateful to have. But the one thing that bugs me about going to the theatre over here is that people don't stand or cheer for anything they like. It reeks of pretentiousness to me, and I know that probably makes me sound like the arrogant or ignorant American, but screw that, I'm just real about it.

We went to see a show called Dodgems this last week, which was really entertaining, I'd give it 3.5 outta 5 stars. I ain't know what was going on most of the time, but it sho did look nice! Lol, let me stop playin around. Now, Dodgems is a piece of physical theater, meaning that its about making images & utilizing space, dancing & movement rather than following a typical literary plot structure. There was some dialogue & stories being told, but it was essentially a dance piece. In the finale, the one brotha they had in the show did an amazing tap dance routine that brought the house down. I mean, this brotha was hoofin' (later we were told that he was one of Savion Glover's dancers from Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk) & of course, in the black tradition, I was ready to shout & show the brotha some love. But I was conflicted cause, while this brotha is hoofin' up a storm, everybody was quiet, so I ain't wanna be the uncouth Negro in the spot & I held back at first. But it got so bad that the brotha was hoofin' & he yelled out, "Where you at, Dublin?" & as soon he said that, my censor shut off. So, your typical "Get It!", "I See You!" etc etc refraints were shouted & probably a couple more things as well. Then at the end when it was done & the whole cast came out for their big bow, people were hesitating to stand for the ovation, even though I clearly could see that at least the other people in my program were ready to hop up with the quickness. Thankfully, my friend Emily hopped up just I was getting to the edge of my seat & a couple others followed suit as well.

Now, while I'm not the biggest supporter of standing ovations in the States, I still believe that if something is deserving of it, you give it to them. I think people back home give too many standing ovations that don't mean anything, but I know I'm only standing if I was moved in some way. Other than that, it'll be a polite clap. As a performer, the feeling of getting a standing ovation is like heaven on earth. To me, that means whatever I did, it you in a special place. And if that is true, the only appropriate response to me it stand up & cheer a lil bit (you ain't gotta get ignorant with it now). Over here in Europe, they don't stand or cheer for nothing, which signals to me that nothing is special to these people. I know that's probably not true, they probably do love certain things & not show it, but still you can't tell me every show deserves the same polite clap. That's like saying if Soulja Boy was Jay-Z's opening act, they both should get the same applause. How ridiculous is that? My point is: This whole polite soceity, we don't stand & cheer like y'all wild Americans, mentality is bogus. If you're moved, let the performer know clearly & definitively, its only right.

I Got The Feeling: Our 1st Performance

*Side note: I meant to post this awhile ago, but I've been fighting with Blogger over uploading my videos onto my blog. For whatever reason, it wasn't working, so I finally got the videos on YouTube & now all is good in the 'hood again. lol.

Monday, September 22nd was an excellent day for me on a couple fronts. First, and most importantly, it was a mini-showcase of the work we've done over the past 3 weeks. We heard about this showcase during our 1st week in class. The assignment was pretty simple, a playwright was writing a new play & she wanted us to stage a portion of her brand new play. So we were gonna do a staged reading (prepared by our acting professor), a movement piece (prepared by our movement professor), and a devising piece (prepared by our devising professor). In each class, we've done some intro stuff then went into a couple class periods preparing on this performance, so maybe we've had 2-3 class periods to prepare. Doesn't sound like a lot of time, hun? It isn't at all, but we do have each class for 2 1/2 to 3 hours a session, so we have enough time to make something bearable to watch.

The day finally came, after a few weeks of hard work & a weekend or nervous chatter amongst our small theater circle, and I was amped to do this (because I'm a ham & love to perform, duh). The audience we had for the showcase was a group of theater professors from the US who were attending a conference, which was nice because they were checking out our program & were excited to see us. And to my surprise & peace of mind, Dr. Bradley (the Theater Department Chair at Spelman College) came as part of the conference. I can't tell you how cool it was to see a familiar face from home, but for it to be a brotha that I look up to meant a lot.

We had a luncheon with the professors, then went to prepare for the showcase, then went afterwards to Smock Alley Theater (which The Gaiety School of Acting will be moving into in the coming years) for a tour of the facility & its plans for the future. So, that's the outline of my story, but what I really wanna share with y'all is part of our showcase performance. What I recorded for y'all is our Devising piece. Devising is basically like improv, in the fact that we don't work from a script & come up with a performance through certain inspirations. For this piece, we took 6 words (stillness, waiting, overwhelmed, incomplete, diminish, & despair) and were split into 3 groups of four, with each group having to come up with a piece of physical theater showing us moving from word to word. I recorded the other two group's pieces, since I obviously couldn't of recorded mine. We did have one of our advisers record everything, so hopefully I can get my group's part from her one of these days. Here are the videos:

Street Theater

Sorry, I've been absent over the past week, there has been a lot going on here in Dublin. But now that I got some quality "me" type, its time to share more experiences with y'all. And I'm gonna do it without cursing unless it is absolutely neccessary, shout out to Mom for the lesson in etiquette! lol.

Last weekend, some friends & I were just walking around the St Stephen's Green area (a really busy, popular area right in city center ) and came across these street performers called The English Gents. I saw the crowd from afar, but wasn't too interested in seeing them considering that I haven't been hugely impressed with all the street performers in the city. Its pretty much a mixed bag when it comes to these street performers, as it is in any city I suppose, but most here seem just commonly mediocre. At least in the NYC subway, you'll get great extremes from laugh out loud ridiculousness or surprisingly entertaining and/or creative acts, but I'm rambling now, so let me get back to the point.

My friends convinced me to stop & watch these guys & I was glad they did. The pictures below will tell you most of the story, but let me just say that the showmanship of these fellas was top notch. I ain't a fan of dudes taking they clothes off, but they played it for enough of a laugh that it wasn't uncomfortable to watch. Just check it out, so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about:













One last thing about the final picture, right above. So, this was their finale. The guy on the bottom laid down on the ground & was gonna lift his partner up with one arm while he stood up. Sounds ridiculous, hun? Well, I ain't believe that he was gonna do it, so I was amazed when I took this picture. Five seconds after I take the picture, he drops his brother. Booooooo! Of course though, the show must go on, especially if they expect me to drop some dough in their buckets. So they tried again & I was all excited to get a picture of the final pose and as soon as they got it, I lifted my camera, clicked the button &.....no flash. I looked down & had run outta batteries, ain't that bout a...(finsh that as you wish)? Once again, I miss out on a cool picture to share with y'all cause I forgot to put new batteries in. I gotta do better, y'all. But they did get the trick done, so you can imagine what it looked like.

Peace & blessings, y'all!

Sources of Inspiration: St. Patrick's Breastplate

In my Voice class, we've been working with different texts to read & explore various performance techniques. Working with punctuation in the text, finding the rhythm in the text, etc etc. So, the first text we received and worked on was a poem from the 6th century called St. Patrick's Breastplate. Since its really long, I'll summarize it for y'all & just explain why it was deep to me. Basically, the poem is about St. Patrick arming himself for battle & invoking the power & spirit of God to protect himself. Here is my favorite part of the poem:

Today I put on
God's strength to steer me,
God's power to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye for my vision,
God's ear for my hearing,
God's word for my speech,
God's hand to protect me,
God's pathway before me,
God's shield for my shelter,
God's angels to guard me
from ambush of devils,
from vice's allurements,
from traps of the flesh,
from all who wish ill,
whether distant of close,
alone or in hosts.

I summon these powers today
to take my part against every implacable power
that attacks my body and soul,
the chants of false prophets,
dark laws of the pagans,
false heretics' laws,
entrapments of idols,
enchantments of women
or smiths or druids,
and all knowledge that poisons
man's body or soul.

Since reading this in class, its been rolling around in my mind. Something really hit home with me about it. Just thinking of all the things that make it difficult to be your best self on a day to day basis, there really is a battle for your soul. It is so much easier to do things for you to succumb to the pressures and influences that will eventually knock you off your path, but here St. Patrick is using all of God's glory to arm himself & fight back against whatever forces that can knock him off his path. One of my favorite songs right now (well, all summer basically) is Jeezy's "Put On" & thinking about the message from that joint, I keep merging these two things together. While Jeezy isn't a remarkable lyricist by any stretch of the imagination, he makes powerful music that moves you emotionally. If you match his emotional, powerful music with the detail & imagry of this poem, its really something to live by, in my humble opinion. So, I guess my message through all of this is that when you have to "put on" each day, whatever that means for you, use God's power & strength to guide you & always strive to the best by His example. This way, you'll be protected from other entrapments & closer to the success you're striving for.

Side note: When we read this in class, we read the first part of the poem that I wrote above & our instructor had me read it by myself. So, I read it & put some emotion to it & felt alright about it. Then, the instructor says, "You have a great quality to your voice, I want you to read it like a Southern preacher." (Surprise, surprise) He says this & all the other white students are looking at me like "yeah, that'll be cool", and I had a quick moment where I wanted to be like "Negro please", but instead I understood where he was coming from & got it done. It felt kinda good too, I ain't gonna front. He had the me read the whole thing & anytime it said God, the other folks would shout it out, so it was like revival in the room.

Now, this ain't the first time this has happened to me, but it bugs me out each time it happens, cause that ain't natural for me. I grew up Catholic, our service was quiet & me & my brother fell asleep often. Before I ever went to a Baptist church, I saw comedians on TV & in movies making funny impersonations of those preachers, so that idea of a Baptist preacher never rang true to me. Still to this day, after being in the South for 3 years & going to my fair share of Baptist services, it still feels really funny to me to be like a Baptist preacher. I always feel like I'm joking rather than being true, cause it ain't my truth yet. One of these days, I'll get past it, but thats just another funny ancedote of being a black man to me.

Peace & blessings y'all!

Thoughs on Galway

Man, I really wished I blogged about this last monday. I had a lot I wanted to say, but I got distracted during the week, & now we'll see what I remember. We got up extra early (aka 5:30 am) in the morning to catch the bus to Galway, which was at 7am. We kinda knew where the bus stop was, but not exactly, so it took us extra long to get there & we missed the 7:30 bus to Galway. We had a big group too, we had to be at least 11 deep. We hop on the 8am bus & take the 4 hour trip there, which means I was knocked out, gettin that mouth wide open snore sleep.

So we get to Galway, find out that we missed out on the day trip to the Cliffs & people start to bug out a lil bit. This is where it really hit, "Kev, you can't travel with everybody. These people are going to drive you bat-shit crazy!" It seems real easy to me: if you're in a new city & you miss the tour you wanted, don't try to find some random back route to the Cliffs, just enjoy the new city you're in. Common sense, right? Well, it was almost an hour before we left the visitor's center trying to find a place to go. Some of the people we were with were comparing 4 different tours to the same place & stressin about what time we'd get back the next day , while me & Chibbi had bought tour tickets for the next day & we're looking up clubs to go to that night. I shoulda done like Mom always told me, "Just leave em." If they ain't got they stuff together, don't wait for em, let em catch up. I swear, I always heard that but felt bad when that situation arose, but Dublin is gonna force me to do that. I ain't missing out on my experiences waiting for others to catch up.

Eventually, we got up & running & y'all have seen the pics from where we went. There was this one point though at the end of the day, where some people wanted to go check out this lighthouse on the coast. We were gonna do that & then go get dinner. We start walking to the coast, which was at least a 15 minute walk from where we were (which is a lot after you've spent the whole day walking), and when get there we see the lighthouse waaaaaay back in the distance. Now, this lighthouse aint some tourist spot that we know is open & has something worth seeing, so I wasn't finna walk for another half an hour just to get another view of the coastline. Most of the group wanted to though, so we let them go & me, Chibbi, & our new friend Karlene stayed back. The plan was for them to call us when they got back & we'd meet up to go to this seafood spot we saw. Well, after an hour of waiting, in which we checked into our hostel, did some shopping & headed to a pub for a drink, I decided to call my roommate Joey, who was part of the other group. Guess what? Them shady folks was at dinner already! He gonna tell me that they tried to call me, but my phone aint work. Ain't that some bullshit? My phone was working just fine & they aint try to call Chibbi or Karlene either, so right then & there I was like, I don't owe any allegiance to none of them. Y'all know I don't trust people & stuff like that is exactly why. They're nice people, but that don't mean I trust em.

It all turned out aiight though, cause the little group I was with end up at this really nice restaurant which we shoulda had a reservation for, but they let us sit & eat at the bar. Next thing you know, we were dining on extra nice seafood, enjoying some nice wine, making conversation with the other people at the bar & everything. It was cool, I felt extra grown in that moment & I enjoyed Chibbi & Karlene cause they were like me, laid back & looking for a good time with no bs attached. It seems like its becoming harder & harder to find people like that. Thank God, I got y'all back home.

After the whole trip & another little sheisty moment that happened on the way home the next night, I really missed home for the first time. Everything up to this point has been the honeymoon period & I've just been caught up with the city, but when little sheisty moments like that happen, it really makes a brotha feel alone. Being alone is all good in a sense, but I can't do everything by myself & burn bridges here, cause lawd knows that if I get on my "me" shit, people ain't gonna respond too kindly to it. I'll find the balance though, it ain't like I got any other choice, right? lol

Peace & blessing, talk to y'all again soon