A Rose Grows in the White Ghetto

Few things match arriving at a favorite restaurant and them already knowing your order. I don't know why, just is.

The perfect agent for The Love Artist is the one who has had some success but now wants to go big. To change the game. Has a vision of what literature could really do if properly written, sold, and applied. Who still believes. And believes, believes, and believes.

Excuse me for a moment (I'm typing this on my phone), my number 83 is here. Tank on Broadway and Argyle, #83. That's all you need to know.

The kids (all cool) are in charge tonight so it's hip-hop. Lovely. The perfect head nod for Vietnamese somehow.

My question is why don't my people (of such considerable means) have restaurants even half as cheerful, warm and alive as a joint like this? Half of my servers (I've had 4 so far) haven't even spoken English and I feel beyond taken care of. I feel like I've been invited into someone's living room for dinner.

Maybe it's the hang out factor. There are two tables constantly filled with friends, boy and girlfriends, family and assorted hangers-on. White folks don't hang out. And when we do it's either coffee or beer and/or bread. Bubble tea (or mango stuff) and something rice produces a much more loving jag.

And then there's the love thing. White people, by and large, don't love what they do anymore. The folks here (I can only generalize) are doing it and committed. You don't bring your family to another country lightly. Their life is their life. The center is the center--and though they certainly aren't wholy different than us, there is a cheerfulness in being extended, committed and with family in the ordeal. Us white folks see work as something off the side. And don't as often feel as committed, as light, as ready to talk about it, I'm willing to posit. In a sense, I think a lot of us think our ambition is the problem, and/or that we've gone as far as we can and should maybe think about going back. My brothers and sisters, nothing could be farther from the truth. Kill that thought. (Eminem just came on--Mockingbird--beautiful).

This leaves us being reluctant leaders who also won't get out of the way. We've got the power and the $$ (and--more importantly--the world's attention) and refuse to budge. Spinning our wheels and medicating so hard we even do our kids. 3.5 cups of coffee a day, average. Add in beer, tea, sugar, wheat and TV and that's pretty much all the feelings.

So why am I sitting here like a bitch talking about other people? I'd just like to suggest you consider going all the way in this lifetime. Doing what you want all the way. Sacrificing everything on faith. And seeing if it doesn't just work. Take that freaky quiet voice and work it on out. Decide to leave it all on the field this time.

I think, like the Nation of Islam, we'll find that it's ourselves that stops us 99 percent of the time from living exactly how we want. There is no them. That's all.

I live at home with my mother (and currently sister). I'm almost 38 and I haven't gotten laid in ridiculously long. I have written a book that will change everything, though. If I can say that humbly. It's already worked for me. I'm stupidly happy. The feeling I wake up with I didn't even used to go to sleep with.

And I'm standing on the verge of getting it on. No, scratch that. I am getting it on and am on the verge of having the opportunity to get it on in boardrooms, bookstores, movie theatres, cd players, and that graystone across the street with the extra-wide, extra-long lot and the gut rehab. To show the world that we've only begun to scratch the surface of what creativity--the unknown--can really do.

My brothers and sistere, what if this is the age of from the bottom to the top? What if the meek are inheriting the earth right in front of us? What if the only way to the top is now through the bottom? The 50 Cents, the Games. And what if there was a lot more room to be meek than that?

What if a bath and a nap every day was the only way to truly get rich? (An idea pioneered by Eben Eldridge). To get enlightened? What if a herd of camels was charging toward a ridiculously large needle eye? Would you jump on? Would you drop your bullshit little backpack? Would you give up on being liberal or conservative? On insisting you weren’t white? Were indie rock or angst-ridden? Busy? Unhappy? Tired? Resigned? Would you give up on being against? Would you commit to being for! Would you demand Yes!? To everything? Including yourself?

And if the earth was dissapearing on the other side? Would you do it then?

Yes, I know you're tired. I know you thought you'd sit this one out. So did I. Believe me, so did I. I was planning on sitting a whole bunch of shit out. (Ooh, my 5th server was hot--proof that sitting it out is some bullshit. You want to fuck, want to engage, want to connect and leave the switch on. You're just a bit scared. That's okay. So am I. --She just filled my water.)

This life is real my friends. In many ways it’s much more real than we can even fathom. And as the great Haruki Murakami said, god bless him, it's time to Dance, Dance, Dance.

No more walflower for me.

(So darlin', darlin' stand by me. Ooooh, stand by me. Just remember.. Stand by me. Stand by me.)