Monday, July 26, 2010

A vow to my friends...


On July 14th 2010 I lost my good friend Stephen "Scrooge" Botas. Not the 1st time I lost a friend but this really hit me hard because he was still so young and just a great down to earth person. No I am not wishing death on all the evil people out there but situations like this make you cherish your life even more, every morning when we rise. Many mornings that we actually take for granted. But this is just a little something I wrote on the steps of some random church on 5th ave when I received news of his passing...

One day I will be no more
No surprise with life comes death
No regrets
Living life to the fullest
Some would say I'm young
but I've seen enough
Family and friends in abundance
Some present, some I've lost
I can't ask for much
Selfish never
my love is available at the drop of a dime
But have I taken the time
To announce this love or did I wait until the flat line?
Better late than never
They say
But I prefer sharing sweet memories before your eulogy
If you are reading this its because I care and this is my vow to you
No matter the hour, no matter the place just know
My heart is with you
Call me
curse me
cry with me
Any longitude and latitude
Just not when I'm 6 feet deep
I refuse to lose you
Without letting it be known
I appreciate you in my life and I cherish you

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

WorldStarShottaBlogger.com

Don't you hate when it appears a week is moving slower than the U.S. government giving Black people reparations? I had one of those weeks this past month. I will never forget the week of June 13, 2010; my great-grandmother birthday was that week, hitting 88 years strong. It was also a moment of history in hip-hop history with Drake dropping his first major label album. I guess, in an effort to build on the Sear’s Tower buzz around his album, Drake is added to a free concert at the South Street Seaport in NYC the same day it dropped on June 15th. Plenty of you reading this already know what occurred on that day and have seen me on the infamous WorldStarhiphop.com or local news channel and are probably wondering why the Shotta Blogger was in a shoving match with the police. Well, when I first heard about the concert I thought:

Free + Niggas = Comedy

So of course I felt I should attend., I love to observe niggadom;, live and in color (no pun). So, I get off the train and fight through every Rugby rocking, Uggs rocking teenager in New York City it appears. I’m thinking the NYPD which isn’t that dumb, would have had some sort of structure and manpower for a free concert with Drake, especially given his popularity. But I assumed wrong because I saw more Ciroc and Goose bottles than police or security at the Seaport. I watched people, the majority being our youth, climb and stand on awnings, smoke blunts like Virginia Slims and even sell Nutcrackers out of their baby carriage. I bet if I walked around I would have probably found someone selling loose'sies of Newport and dime bags. I mean, I am not perfect but just from observation most of the kids in attendance needed to go on Maury and have that drill sergeant scream some sense into them. By now plenty of you seen footage from the event and trust me it was 10 times worse live. Being I have such great luck, I happen to be in the same area where the young lady was throwing chairs off the balcony. So, of course New York’s “Finest” makes their way to the area where the the fiasco is taking place. Most of the guilty parties depart into the massive crowd, so now it’s only my friend Daryl and me with a couple police officers. I don't know if it’s my beard or my gut but NYPD have been showing me a lot of "love" the whole summer. So, lady officer approaches and says to vacate the premises and before I could even answer she puts her hands on me. I mean, since I was in kindergarten I was told not to put my hands on someone else. As far as I know police can not touch me without probable cause, and I think every Black man qualifies to be a criminal lawyer; its in our DNA, we know the law. So after she pushes me, I ask her for her badge number and , this I guess this scares her. This situation was a free pass to “When keeping it real goes wrong” © Dave Chapelle, which would of have lead to my arrest. Some of her fellow officers join in the shoving match while I try to compile the multiple badge numbers in my head. The more I asked for their badge numbers the more they pushed me. I guess, the stereotype of doughnuts is true with cops because even with 4 officers, they could barely get me down the stairs so eventually they pulled out the cuffs and then I became Casper. Now, at the bottom of the stairs, blood boiling as hot as the Devil's belly button I waited a few minutes. I was waiting for the officers to come down from the 2nd level where the altercation occurred. I grew impatient after a few minutes so I went back up the stairs of doom in hopes to get a view of the pigs who assaulted me to record their badge numbers. Before I could reach the top another office told me I couldn't come up here and as I tried to plea that I only wanted a badge number and I would vacate right after that but it was like talking to Helen Keller. Again, with force I was sent down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs I sought assistance from the other officers but they all answered with "I don't know" and Kanye shrug's. It was at this moment I realized what a the gang our NYPD really is.

How could they refuse me assistance just because there it was an issue with one of their fellow officers?

Why was I seen as a threat instead of reprimanding individuals who caused the actual ruckus?

Where are your the priorities, NY's finest?


So a few weeks ago I filed a complaint with the information I was able to gather during the whole scuffle with the city. The investigators made sure to tell me out of all the complaints filed, only 10% are actually found in favor ofn the civilian. I have a better chance of having protected sex with an AIDS patient compared to having a NYPD officer disciplined for touching and pushing me unlawfully. We will see how this all plays out...

“There is a war going on outside, no man is safe from”

It’s already a hassle to walk the streets of NY because a fool may want to pull out a gun for scuffing his sneakers, but those employed “To Protect and Serve” are more concerned with themselves compared to civilians. I would like to dedicate this blog to the families of Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant and all black men across the country assaulted or murdered unlawfully by law enforcement. If a riot started in the names of the aforementioned victims against police brutality I would gladly make the news for standing up against these pigs.