The Human Body vs My Body

I've always marveled at the human body (especially the female body  ) with it's capabilities, limits and thresholds, which is a reason why I've always been obsessed with activities like Parkour, Breakdancing and Martial Arts. These badasses push their bodies through intensive training and discipline to perform the insanity that makes you go . That last one still got me confused but I like the sound of how profound it is in my mound. HOOOOOO!!!

As a kid I was with boundless energy climbing kitchen counters, standing on top of a flight of stairs, any high surface that my little dumbass mind would deem safe enough for me jump off and not die. Then I would choose another surface, or add a platform, or go up another step and repeat. I'd push myself until I said, "Ow, that one hurt". Thanks to action flicks and Kung-Fu movies that feature crazy stunts by the likes of Jackie Chan Sammo Hun and Yuen Biao, I was obsessed with jumping from high surfaces and not dying. I loved the freefall feeling while I was sailing midair, the distance between jump off and impact.

I was also fascinated with Breakdancing and Pop-Locking. The fluidity of how they're able to create a sick ripple effect or how they made the illusion of floating and gliding by seamlessly lifting and pushing off with their feet. Just when you were warming up to these dancers mesmerizing you on their feet they toprock then drop down to scramble and shuffle their feet with a series of sophisticated and complicated steps such speed that makes you go . When you think you had enough perform the backspins, windmills, handstands, turtles, freezes, flips, etc. Whoa...hello there....

Instead of asking who was a Bruce Lee fan growing up; my question is who didn't take one look at this God of all kickass do a flying kick and go "WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" I don't even think idolize is enough to describe my admiration for him. To this day I am obsessed with Bruce and his Jeet Kune Do but I'll save that for another day because it's a post within itself. After watching Fist of Fury at age 5 I was roundhousing, high kicking, punching and jump kicking all around the house while bouncing around and flicking my nose with the intense cocky I-just-kicked-your-ass-but-I'm-not-done-showing-you-some-shit look and shaking my head slowly side to side while letting out a low-toned "wooooooo".

Being the only child that was home alone with barely any toys and only my imagination, "playing with yourself" took a whole new and different meaning. (Not like that you sick kiddy gonad loving pedophile, you probably park out front a school in one of these ) And because of my active spirit and endless supply of energy I was definitely a fucking terror growing up. Some still say I'm a terror now, ask my friends they'll tell ya. In fact I'm surprised I made it this far, I'm sure there were many nights while I was sleeping where my parents stood over me with a pillow arguing over who's gonna do it. I'm also surprised they didn't punt my little lardass off the Manhattan Bridge and then high-five each other .

But now after the 30, the energy has diminished but my active spirit still is very much alive and it fucking kills me. I'll look at something and have to remind myself not to do it because I'm not young no more. For example, standing on a 15' wall and saying to myself, "I used to own this, but if I jump this now that shit will hurt". After the ankle twist that ended my chance of running the NYC Marathon I went to see many podiatrists and physical therapists. One of the podiatrists said my tendons were too elastic which is the result of the many sprains, twists and now tendinitis and basically I wasn't born to be an athlete. Well fuck me sideways, talk about throwing a monkey wrench in. So far it seems true, my laundry list of past injuries seem to be rearing it's ugly head. Couple that with the fact that I'm an and now you get old AND fat. Without the amount of cardio I put in I can pack on fat like this . I can walk past a bakery and take a whiff at the delicious aroma baking in their oven and instantly feel my love handles spill out the side of my pants. My regular jeans feels like skinny jeans instantly. If I think about cake my butt will grow another ass cheek. You know that three titty girl in total recall? Well I'll have three butt cheeks with two ass cracks 
(  Y  Y  ).

Moral of the story? Know your body and take good care of it.

Gentrification

New York City, The Big Apple, The City That Never Sleeps, NYC: my muthafuckin' home.

As many have heard, Spike Lee ripped it at Pratt Institute the other day (if not here ya go Spike Lee) about his thoughts and experience with gentrification. I know this definitely hit home with native New Yorkers like me that were either born and raised or spent a majority of their lives growing up here. We've seen a crazy influx of non New Yorkers in the last decade, transforming a good part of Brooklyn, Queens, some of Manhattan and Da Bronx as we used to know it. It's an issue that swings on a microscopically thin line between the abundance of pros and cons. We can sit here and argue all fucking day about it going back and forth like Miley and her dumbass wrecking ball.

Two main points I feel from Spike: 1) New Yorkers have been taxpayers all along, but why does it take others to come in for the city to get better? 2) I live here, you don't. So don't tell me what to do and who to be. RESPECT AND RECOGNIZE.

I remember growing up, times were rough and it wasn't always the greatest. Our very first house was in Jamaica, NY in District 25. In order to ensure that I had received an education from a good school, my parents bust their asses to move to a District 26 school which was only a mile away. But of course the difference in property value was significant enough that we made lots of sacrifices and lived on tighter means. Even after the move our neighborhood still suffered from crime despite it being a better one. Houses were broken into, cars stolen multiple times, gangs, etc. My parents always had the fear of something happening to me when I was alone but because they had to work they taught me to be self efficient. I walked to school and back from PS 173. A mile each trip daily, I can only imagine the anxiety my parents went through thinking the possibilities of what could happen in those 2 miles that my little feet trekked every single fucking day. Meanwhile the abundant of yellow cheese buses now stop at every fucking house to pick up a kid causing frustrating traffic for everyone else (my opinion on this may change when and if I have kids in the future but for now that's where I stand). My old neighborhood of Jamaica is safer today than the neighborhood of Fresh Meadows growing up. Times have changed and is it because of these richer folks coming in that pay taxes that helped it get better? Were our tax dollars back in the 80's and 90's simply not good enough to turn things around? I'm not sure about that but I know taxes are damn high now making it almost not affordable to even live here. Higher property taxes also means higher rent and standard of living in general. 

This has got to be one of the hardest cities to run in the world and everyone has an opinion on how to do it. All I know is I might not be able to afford spending my life in NYC down the line. Yeah it's a whole lot safer now and the only thing I have to worry about with my future kids is them growing up in a society that's going to pussify them (I'll save this for a separate session).

Spike spoke about the neighborhood that he grew up in which is Fort Greene but also mentioned South Bronx, Harlem, Bed Stuy and Crown Heights that are hugely affected by this, I'm gonna call it, "epidemic". Why epidemic? The definition as a noun is "a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time." At this particular time, the disease that's infecting our community is the mindset that's being brought in by these outer cultures. In Anderson Cooper's interview with Spike he said, "I don't hate anybody, I think anybody's entitled in lieu of what they want. My problem is that when you move into a neighborhood, have some respect for the history, for the culture. And i'm gonna explain the word 'bogart' for people who don't know. 'Bogart' comse from 'Humphrey Bogart' meaning you come in...you come in and just take it over! You can't do that! These historic...Harlem's (a) historic black neighborhood! History! Bedford Stuyvesant! Fort Greene! Just come and be humble. Don't come in and say we're here now and that's the way it has to be! That's, that's, that's crazy!" (This is the real link, I swear)

:Pounds heart with fist: MMMM!!! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, PREACH!!! 

Sorry just had a moment there...

That's that epidemic shit. I have no qualms with new neighbors, I enjoy meeting new people because there's always something you can take from all sizes, shapes and forms of walks of life. But don't come to my hood and tell me what the fuck to do and how to act. Who the fuck...what in the whole fucking Milky Way Galaxy makes you think that's okay?! I'm not gonna say "Hipsters" or "White People", although fucking coincidentally, these are the groups flocking in and causing this ruckus. As a matter of fact, I don't even like the new wave of Chinese people coming in! But if you come to my muthafuckin' home with your high ass horse sense of entitlement mindset thinking, "This is nice but ummm...some changes will be made" and expect me to bow my head the fuck down and take it with no lube and then steal my underwear then you got something coming for ya. As someone once said in their drunken tirade, "PARK YOUR CAR AND GO THE FUCK HOME!!!" 

I don't care who you are or where you come from. In fact I've met MANY individuals from different places that are extremely pleasant, sweet and downright spectacular people and befriended them as well. It's awesome that they come here to the NYC grind and be one of us. They came here to try and "make it". That's the essence, the grit of the NYC state of mind: I'm here to make it and have a muthafuckin' good time while I'm at it. Those that come here already made, well they don't have that mentality because they don't have a GOD DAMN thing to worry about! So they worry about other things that kill the culture and subcultures that make this city so great. It's a whole new level of suppression, by passive aggressively spraying us with their fire hose and sicking silent attack dogs to keep us quiet and compliant.

This is one of my favorite moments 2 years ago that relates to this whole issue. I was up front at Central Park for Rocksteady Crew's Anniversary performance. The performance started and people swarmed the front to witness history as this will be B-boy legend Crazy Legs' last performance as he will announce his retirement at the end of the night. Next to me was a father and young son who's barely 4' tall. Father was explaining and describing how he grew up watching these guys and started breakin' too. In order for the young blood to see they left a gap between the people ahead so no one was immediately in front of him and he would have some sort of view. During the dance sequences the pops hoisted his son onto his shoulder for a better peek of the action. Of course there would be a few bumps and knocks from this movement but I paid no mind to it because the father was courteous and apologetic and all was good. As the second act started a couple white kids either in their late teens or early 20's (I'm bad at telling people's age) squeezed through the crowd and stood in the space ahead of the young boy, obstructing his view from the ground. I can tell they were definitely not native New Yorkers, just from the style of dress and their attitude. Don't know how to explain it but just one of those things you sense. In frustration the father now has to lift his son to see the whole thing because of their inconsideration. The kid of course kicks one of them on the way up because there simply was no room. One of the white kids turned around and muttered something under his breath towards the boy. The father immediately put down his son and said, "If you got something to say turn around and say it again to my face." White kid doesn't respond. The father says "I'm from New York I'm not from out of town like your punkass, I don't give a fuck!" Then the infamous words I haven't heard in ages, "You don't know me! I will fuck you up!" At which point I started clapping, smiling and shaking my head in satisfaction. I looked at the father and stuck out my hand, the father didn't even look down...he just gave me a pound. You can hear the native New Yorkers going, "OHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH!!!!", while the out of towners were :crickets:...silence...ROFLOL

New Yorkers, we are a diverse population that's almost seen it all. There ain't no place like it with a muthafuckin' big ass period the size of the sun. 


Come! Do as we are! Blend in! Have fun! When in Rome, do as the Romans do. This is our Rome...MOTHAFUCKA'!!!