Big Bois Have Fun Too

Don't Forget to VOTE!

2008-02-05T08:35:00.000-05:00

Do you want CHANGE? One vote is all it takes! Yes, we can...

VOTE for PEACE!

VOTE for DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY!

VOTE for EDUCATION!

VOTE FOR CHANGE!

Loving Him/Her But Losing You

2007-12-13T01:30:00.001-05:00

Love comes easy for some and so hard for others. I, for one, am a hopeless romantic, and when I fall for someone, I put my all in to it. One of my friends asked me to write a blog about how I love and lose myself in the process, and I've had a day to mull this over, so I will give it a try.

When I fall for someone, or when I commit to someone or something, I give all of me... mind, body and soul. But at what price? I am generally a caring person, always taking that extra step to ensure that everyone is happy. I worry that people are ok, take on other's responsibilities, caring for their needs, all the while forgetting about my own. My mother is like that too, so I guess I could say that I get it honestly. But is there such a thing as too caring? Is it possible to love someone or something so much that you lose sight of everything that means anything to you? If you are in a relationship, and you want it to work, should you forget about you and focus on "we" or "us" or the plural "you"?

That's debatable. So, I am going to open this up to my readers (the few I have) and ask for your input. I guess this will be a first of many interactive blogs.

Race in America

2007-12-10T08:58:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months, in the news and on the radio, we've heard about racist remarks and symbols left on buildings, in bathrooms, in schools and churches... what does this mean for us today? Is this some type of prank or is it an attempt to revert back to early 20th century race relations? The days of physical slavery in America are gone yet so many of us (Black, White, Latino, Hispanic and others) are locked in the grips of mental slavery... How so?

1) Our grandparents and great grandparents worked so hard to over come the "N-word" and yet many of us today revert back to its use. Many people do it, of all races, using something so derogatory as a "term of endearment". I admit, I myself am guilty of using it... and I am going to cause a change, starting with me first. I won't use that word in any of my writings or in my communications with other individuals... and I will purposely and pointedly redirect anyone that uses that word with me.

2) We continue to commit crimes against ourselves... killing one another, destroying our own communities... there is no need for racist groups today like the KKK because Blacks and Latinos kill their own, an internal hatred for one another based on the color of an individual's clothes or bandanna. No wonder media and journalists are referring to some as the Black KKK. That's ridiculous!!! How about joining together to uplift a community... instead of ganging up to beat down and kill one. Differences make us individuals, why not celebrate our differences?

3) The number of Blacks and Latinos graduating high school and going on to college pale in comparison to those of Whites, Asians and others. Choosing a life on the streets is choosing no life at all. Selling drugs, playing thug on the street corner will only get you six feet under. Yet, this is the life many of our young men make every single day. And what legacy do we leave our children when we show them this is the only way?

4) We continue to degrade our most valuable treasure... our women... our mothers, our sisters, grandmothers, aunts, cousins. Calling them bitches and whores and treating females as such. Beating them, slapping them down to the ground... depreciating one of earth's most natural beauties. How is that any different than they were treated during the time of slavery? Using them as a piece of ass and throwing them to the side when a nicer piece of ass comes along. And based on how we treat the Black woman, how do we expect others to treat them any better?

We all are affected by mental slavery in our everyday life, on our jobs, at the grocery store... in our own homes... discrimination and intolerance because of differences, based on the color of our skin... but it's up to each one of us to change starting with ourselves. I know I just seemed to ramble in this blog, but I had a lot of thoughts and just wanted to get it all out.

When is Big TOO BIG

2007-12-10T08:41:00.000-05:00

In a world where more and more men and women are attracted to the "big and beautiful," someone has to ask the question, when is big just too damn big? There are some that are of the opinion that the bigger the better. But is that really so?

Take for instance, a woman that, in order to get to her vaginal area, you have to get through thirty pounds of stomach, only to realize that now you have to try to swim through an extra hundred pounds of legs to enter her "pleasure kingdom"... is it really worth it? But the time you've reached your destination, you're worn out.

And then, think of a guy who's stomach hangs lower than his dick does... where's the satisfaction in that, unless you're getting him from behind? And that leads me to another question, how do really big people wipe themselves?

Now, I am not skinny myself. As the title of my blogging space is "Big Bois Have Fun Too"... so shit, you know I am a big guy. But, in my opinion, there is such a thing as too big. When your weight inhibits movement and increases risks for heart attack, stroke, and diabetes. Well, most of you would say that any additional or increased weight could cause that... and you don't have to be fat to suffer from those ailments. My point is that if you are so big that your weight causes you to be unable to clean yourself, and you have a lingering odor, then you're at that point where big is just too big.

Your thoughts?

In a Progressive State, a City Where Gay Life Hangs by a Thread

2007-12-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

Below is an article that appeared in the New York Times. Although I do not feel the article is 100% accurate, I feel some of the points are valid and should be shared. I will post a comment to this in the comment section.

To read the article as it appeared in the paper, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/nyregion/02newark.html?_r=3&ei=5088&en=4030a5b18072198b&ex=1354338000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

_________________________________________________________________

In a Progressive State, a City Where Gay Life Hangs by a Thread

By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: December 2, 2007
NEWARK, Nov. 30 — To live in Newark often means grappling with unrelenting poverty, the anesthetizing lure of drugs, murderous gangs, a lack of decent jobs. But for gay men, lesbians and transgender people, there are additional obstacles that are seldom acknowledged: gay bashings, H.I.V., open hostility from many religious leaders and sometimes callous treatment by the police.
When venturing outside his Central Ward neighborhood, Tyrone Simpson, 19, stays on main thoroughfares and steers clear of the men in gang colors looking for easy quarry. Dynasty Mitchell, 21, an aspiring poet who works at a supermarket, has learned to blend in by stretching a do-rag over his head and adopting a thuggish gait in public.
“If you’re not prepared to fight, you’re not going to survive in Newark,” said Mr. Simpson, who is unabashedly gay.
New Jersey has become a national beacon for gay equality. It boasts some of the toughest anti-discrimination laws in the country, and recent legislation makes it one of only three states that recognize same-sex civil unions. Gay marriage, some say, is just around the corner. Across the state, same-sex couples and their children have become integrated into suburban life.
But here in the state’s largest city, gay men and lesbians might as well live on another planet.
“You wouldn’t know that Greenwich Village is 10 miles away,” said James Credle, 62, a Vietnam veteran who is working with about a dozen other activists to revive the Newark Pride Alliance, a group established three years ago after a 15-year-old lesbian, Sakia Gunn, was stabbed to death by a man who, the police said, was infuriated that she had rejected his advances. “People here feel like we don’t deserve to be alive.For us, it’s about survival,” Mr. Credle said, “and all this talk of gay marriage is just a luxury.”
The city has no gay community center, no gay pride parade, no established gay organizations; there are no bars devoted exclusively to gay or lesbian clientele. “Newark is like one big closet,” said Ron Saleh, a consultant to the John Edwards presidential campaign, who moved here two years ago. “And there’s nothing going on for gay people. It’s like a desert.”
There are, however, a few hints of change. In June, Mayor Cory A. Booker became the first public official to embrace the issue by hoisting a rainbow flag over City Hall in recognition of Gay Pride Month. Yesterday, Gov. Jon S. Corzine was expected to attend a World AIDS Day event here. Last year, voters elected Dana Rone to the Municipal Council; she became the city’s first openly lesbian official when a newspaper, after her inauguration, reported on her sexual orientation.
And while many gay men and lesbians complain that they have been ridiculed and intimidated by the police, Garry F. McCarthy, the city’s police director, has begun requiring sensitivity training for all members of the force as part of biannual sessions that focus on sexual harassment.
Even those steps have met with resistance. When he presided over the raising of the rainbow flag, Mayor Booker said, he was stunned by the flood of angry phone calls to his office. “There’s a lot of silent pain in the city of Newark, and perpetrators of this pain — those who promote the bigotry and the alienation — must be confronted,” he said.
For a handful of gay activists in the city, the schoolyard shooting of four young people in August was a measure of that pain, if not of bigotry. They have been pressing law enforcement officials to investigate the shootings as a possible bias crime.
Mr. Credle, an organizer of Newark Pride Alliance, said that one of the teenagers arrested after the killings attended the same high school as three of the victims and may have thought they were gay because they hung around an openly gay crowd.
The police have said the killings were carried out during a robbery, but the Essex County prosecutor, Paula T. Dow, said investigators were still working to establish a motive.
James Harvey, the father of Dashon Harvey, one of the three who died in the schoolyard shootings, dismissed the suggestions that antigay bias played a role. “That’s so baloney, I don’t even want to give it a thought,” he said. “I’m just trying to get over my son being buried and gone from me.”
In some ways, the lack of a vibrant, organized gay community mirrors many other aspects of civic life in Newark, a city stunted by poverty and lacking the kind of comfortable middle class found in cities of similar size.
“We are an underdeveloped community in every area, so it is no surprise” that homophobia persists, said Ms. Rone.
Many churches in the city remain openly hostile to homosexuality.
Gary Paul Wright, executive director of the African American Office of Gay Concerns, a group that provides education and counseling on H.I.V. and AIDS, said his five-year effort to dispense AIDS educational material at local churches had been universally thwarted.
“There’s a whole lot of preaching about homosexuality and sin,” said Mr. Wright. “It really hurts and it makes me mad, but it also reinforces the stigma associated with H.I.V. and AIDS, which makes our job that much harder.”
Such institutional antipathy drives many people into lives marked by secrecy. Some turn to the Internet for connections. One site that is popular among black and Hispanic men here, Adam4Adam.com, has more than 500 active members in Newark; on a recent night, nearly 200 of them were online.
Not everyone feels the need to stay in the closet. June Dowell-Burton, 38, a social work student at the Newark campus of Rutgers University, said her neighbors did not seem bothered that she and her partner shared an apartment, a car and grocery shopping forays. “We don’t hide anything, and no one seems to mind,” she said.
Sharrieff Baker and his partner, Edwin Rosario, who own a house in the North Ward, said they had a very different experience when one of their tenants found out they were a couple. Last month, they said, the tenant tore up a shared bathroom, called them “faggots” and threatened to blow up their house. When they called 911, they said, Vincent Cordi, the responding police officer, appeared unconcerned and agreed only reluctantly to take their complaint. Back at the station house, they said, Officer Cordi sniggered with co-workers as he typed up the paperwork, at one point blurting out, “How do you spell ‘faggot’ ?”
When they returned home that day, they were attacked by the tenant in the hallway, they said; Officer Cordi responded to their 911 call and arrested all three men. Mr. Baker, who lost a front tooth in the skirmish, was charged with aggravated assault, as was the tenant; they both spent the weekend in jail. Mr. Rosario was not charged. Neither Officer Cordi nor officials in the Police Department responded to requests for comment.
Mr. Baker, who has filed a complaint with the internal affairs department, said he was especially angered by the Police Department’s refusal to designate the incident antigay. Newark, unlike many cities its size, does not compile data on antigay violence.
The day after he filed the complaint, Mr. Baker said, his car was towed from in front of his home. He suggested it was an act of vengeance; the police said it was removed for street cleaning.
Mr. Baker, 32, a real estate broker who moved to Newark from Jersey City last year, said that because of the incident, he and Mr. Rosario, a schoolteacher, want to move away. “I came here because I wanted to be part of Newark’s renaissance, but now I’m afraid even in my own house,” he said.
The Booker administration’s efforts to help establish a gay community center have been largely hamstrung by what veteran gay activists acknowledge are internal disagreements.
Then there is the apathy. When Laquetta Nelson tried to start a Newark chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, she gave up after a few months. “In the end, no one came to the meetings,” she said.
For now, the only refuge for gay people is in a nondescript building on the outskirts of downtown. Project Wow, as it is called, is a no-frills drop-in center run by the North Jersey Community Research Initiative, an organization that devotes most of its resources to research on AIDS drugs and free medical care. Project Wow draws a few dozen young people each night who come for counseling and H.I.V. prevention advice but mostly for the camaraderie and shelter from the city’s unsympathetic streets.
Alex Williams, Project Wow’s director, asked that the center’s location not be printed, noting that 15 of the center’s employees and clients had been attacked on their way to or from the building in the last six months.
Sitting in the lounge at the center, Tariq Pickens, 23, recalled how he and a friend dressed in drag were ambushed on the street by a group of men and women three years ago. During a few hellish moments, he said, they were slashed, punched, robbed and doused with lighter fluid, although the fuel failed to ignite. “I’ve had so many friends killed, beaten, raped, I can’t even count,” he said.
Kira Henry, too, has felt fear. Ms. Henry, 20, who is transgender, is taking a cooking class. When she walks to school in the morning, she said, she tries to look straight ahead and meet the inevitable taunts and catcalls with a forced smile. But when the bottles and bricks fly, she said, she knows how to fight — or sprint in six-inch heels.
“If you beat me up or shoot me,” she said, “I’m still going to be me.”
Like many of Project Wow’s clients, Willie Harden, 20, is homeless and jobless. He is also effectively orphaned, although his mother, a drug addict, is reputed to be somewhere in Jersey City.
Since aging out of foster care two years ago, Mr. Harden has lived at a series of shelters, the latest being Covenant House. He said he tried to hide his sexuality from strangers. The last thing he needed, he said, was more ridicule, or an uninvited beating.
“It’s hard living a double life,” he said. “It sounds crazy, but one day I’d like to walk down the street holding my boyfriend’s hand with nobody saying one bad word.”

Who Am I?

2007-12-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

I am really trying to get into written expression. Here's something that I wrote... and yes, it's copyrighted... so don't try to steal it... anyway, here it goes:

---- Who am I----

Standing here feeling uncomfortable with myself, lowering my head in disgust at what I've become. Overly consumed with the feeling that someone is staring, frantically, I look around, as if to catch the perpetrator that's reading me like a Shakespearean play, paying attention to every letter to not miss a single word. There's no one around...maybe I'm just going crazy, but I still feel someone watching me. Suddenly, I look up... there he is, someone standing right before me... staring at me like he knows me. A stare like he's known me for many years, a stare that pierces every fiber of my being. His stare is now becoming uncomfortable and I'm becoming self-conscious.

Enraptured with his stare, I began to stare back. Dark hair, medium brown eyes. He is about my height, with a lovely light brown complexion. I think he is mixed possibly black and some kind of Spanish. As I stare he seems faintly familiar... like I've known him for some time. He seems so familiar that as I start to think about it, he seems more like family... or someone from my past.

His thin face, smooth skin, small frame and very youthful look are all too familiar. Short cut hair, handsome in almost every way. Suddenly someone faintly sings 'sexy light skinned'. I didn't even respond... didn't even want to know where it came from. Glancing to the left and briefly to the right, I realized he had captured and captivated an audience of his own. Every young girl wanting him, and everyone inquiring who he is, is too familiar to him.

Who is this young man that, for some reason, has arrested everyone's attention yet just kept his gaze on me. Narcissistically, he assumes my staring back welcomed his intrusive gaze. Searching around and now feeling even more insecure, I search for a way to get out of his peripherals. As I moved, I felt his eyes follow me, and then I looked up again and he wasn't there. Where did he go? Why did he leave? Then as I glance back up at the mirror and awaken from my daydream, the face staring back at me is my own. The face I became so captivated by was that of my own just ten years earlier. I stood there for a minute, slipping back into reality... trying to get out of the self-pity I sank into.

The smile that used to capture everyone's attention is now just happy if it captures the attention of just one. Age has gotten to him... and the fact that he let himself go... he finally realized it was time for him to get off his ass and do something about it. Something to regain his youth... regain the love that he lost... to regain and reclaim himself... it's one final chance for me to regain and reclaim ME.

Bush's White House -- Bush's War -- Bush's America

2007-12-09T20:47:00.000-05:00

About seven years ago, the American public elected the most incompetent person to the Office of the President. Since then, his government has been mired with one issue after another. From defrauding the people of this great nation, asking our support as he goes after countries that harbor terrorist and individuals that pose a threat to this country... to invading the pravacy of the American public through wire tapping... to destroying tapes of tactics used to question "enemy combatants".

I recently saw a sign that read "Buck Fush"... and, if you are smart, I am sure you can figure it out... and I don't remember any sitting US President that has garnered so much disdain from both the American public and abroad. He has got to be the worst US President in history.

Now, it's time to take a stand. He successfully spent trillions of dollars on HIS war, yet, there are millions that go hungry everyday in this country. HIS war will cost this country hundreds of trillions of dollars for years to come, yet he (Bush) wants to cut Welfare, TANF and other services that assist those living below the poverty line. Force Bush out of office and put someone in there that will do some good for the American public. BRING OUR TROOPS HOME and don't let another soldier die for a senseless cause.

Bush's White House, Bush's War, Bush's America... can we really deal with another year of Bush?