musical experiencesValadation pt. 1
'x' factor
The word is validation: the following are two separate blog entries by my ‘x’ on his tribe blog from 2005—we broke up in 1999, it took him this long to contextualize his betrayal..
What I’m going to do here, since the black text is mainly bloods validation of himself, is attempt to put in RED text what I think is myself within these context..
Mon, August 8, 2005 - 7:59 AM
The Florida trip is a whole other ball of wax though. As much as I don’t want to go into it, I think that I need to. I’ve been avoiding the whole thing & really want my energy back from it. So what happened? Well, I went to see an ex of mine who’s living in St. Pete’s.
I think we’ve been on different pages since way back when she came out to visit me when I was living w/ RW.
U see, the thing is that when this event unfolded on my life, I was so deeply in love with him but could see the handwriting on the wall that said he would never be my lover..no; I agreed to host his ‘friend’ (hopeing he would recognize in me a desire to preserve what was special about our friendship and love affair --he denied at that time that she was an ‘ex’ of his, and insisted that they where not even interested in each other in that manner..(I knew he was lying; I tried to get him to admit he was lying and trying to deceive me..he denied it and attempted to make me look like a jealous hysterical queer.. obsessed with control)
I made every attempt to befriend his friend, but it became real clear that she had no respect for me and didn’t really value my friendship..she was there only to have a dialogue with my lover her ‘ex’ of which was more about taking him away from me..
I spent money and time making her comfortable in our home..but in the end felt betrayed by my lover because of his lust and pinning for her even then in our home; this of course sealed the deal for me on leaving him..and closed down my communcations of holding on..
That whole deal was a huge wreck in itself.
Yes, it was a wreck; not only her but his other friends from out of state all contributed to a terrible mess of human emotions, i.e., my lover favored the attention and behavior of his past associates over the live with lover I was for him at the time; he lied about his intentions and he went out of his way to avoid me for them; I became stressed and felt put out by straight up denial of what we had as lovers and felt he betrayed the value of our friendship..
Maybe I wanted to hold onto what we had instead of realizing that what’s really going on looks nothing like that now. We had a hot summer hook up back in 93. It was great, but even then we were different people & had gone our separate ways when she left for school in Winston.
Sun, November 6, 2005
ps -- the assignment was to "submit a written story of your own experience with creativity and madness."
The years I spent dating, RW, a black man 17 years my senior, served as both a personal finishing school as well as a journey through the land between creativity and madness on many levels.
Some how I feel the reference to our age difference is a justification for everything else he has to say here. True enough we where different ages; I never chased blood or stalked him out; In the beginning he came of his own free will to my place to hang out with my friends and I; I never pressured him to have a sexual relation with me; I did let him know that I was very much attracted to him and in fact felt he was truly a soul mate to me; but, because he had mixed feeling about his own homosexual intent I begged him to be honest, and true about what he wanted from me and/or what he took from me; i.e., blood would hang for days at my house, eating and drink’n my shit while never bringing anything to the mix..other than consumption; likewise, on the sexual level he wanted sex, but he was good about giving sex; on several ‘dates’ in and around my bed, in the early day, I put him out of my bed simply because he was all about taking and not giving..
During the time that we lived together in 
San Francisco, from February of 1996 until October of 1999, we argued frequently while our creative output continued to spread across many formats (video, music, writing, and painting, to name a few).
We didn’t argue frequently in the early years of our relationship..the arguments didn’t start until the last year of our affair. In the beginning, I cared so much for him I went out of my way to focus on his needs , wants, ambitions and aligned them to mine. So much so, I lost my best friend whom felt betrayed by the amount of attention I put into my relating to him.
While exploring personal issues going back to my father’s death when I was only a few months old, we visited Amsterdam for my 26th birthday. The time we spent together opened my eyes to new ideas about myself and the world around me.
Blood forced these explorations into our relationship; in fact used them to justify his failing efforts to have an honest, open, and committed queer relationship with me; i.e., I felt his past and family issues where his own, and though I was willing to dialogue about them I didn’t want them to determine our relationship; Our visit to Amsterdam was suppose to be about a reconciliation of our commitment to each other—in the end, he betrayed that by attempting to ‘hook up’ with another ‘ex’ woman friend during our trip, and by totally acting separate towards me as if we hadn’t come on the trip together; by the time we got back, I actually hated him for putting me though such bs ..After we broke up, my creativity sputtered while I faced the realities of daily life. I had to find a new place to live. I had to deal with the mundane world of saving money, cooking for myself, and doing laundry. All of the luxuries and privileges I had been taking for granted suddenly ended. I was the same person, but I haven’t been who we were back then ever since.
Yes, I’m sure he did go through a few changes like he has just mentioned, cause while living with me, my lover, never paid a bill, nor rent, nor took care of household matters unless I insisted; of which I had to insist a lot; He never shoped for our food, washed our clothes, in fact he wore my clothes and never tried to ad to my wardrobe; I did most of the cooking for us, even when we both went into a extreme diet of vegans’ ; I had to save monies for our ventures, where as he spent monies on every material thing that he desired. Sure I could have confronted him more about this behavior, in fact I should have cause it would have helped me to leave him sooner..but no, like a love sick fool..i aided him in gaining incomes that he selfishly spent on his needs and rarely ours.
Looking around at there here and now, I don’t see who we were reflected in any of the couples I see these days. Two black homosexuals dating across the generation gap actually seems to be quite rare indeed. It never occurred to me that we actually had something special at the time. 
And this is where my heartache wit him sort of begins, his failure then to notice how special our time was..
It was, and still is, easy for me to generalize, thinking that arguments over the finer points of what is or isn’t art happen in homes across the nation. Whether or not sampling, either sounds or images, detracts from the artist’s final product has to be as valid a topic as discussing sports scores or celebrity gossip. Sadly, I just might be wrong
.
Some background information on how I found myself in such a situation might clarify things. I was born in Boston in November of 1971 and my father’s death in April of 1972 left a huge hole in both my life and psyche. Even though my mother remarried when I was ten years old, I still had issues around men. Exactly what went into making a man was one of the questions I felt I needed to answer. My stepfather and I didn’t see eye to eye on many topics. Growing up as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses had also left an imprint on my persona.
My mother decided to move to North Carolina, where her side of the family owned some land, when I was three years old. For the next twenty years, I never considered the south to be home and felt like an outsider most of the time. When I left in the fall of 1995, all I knew was that there had to be more to the world than tobacco and college basketball. I left my girlfriend at the time along with everyone and everything that I knew up to that point.
Riding the bus to California began the process of peeling away the layers of southern culture that had been foisted upon me over the years. Then I got off the bus in Bakersfield only to realize that there were rednecks in California too. I lived with a friend for a couple of months and then drove up to San Francisco with a guy I had met. Driving across the Bay Bridge for the first time just felt so right. It felt like I had finally arrived in California and that the few months before were just a sloppy rough draft.
I have to admit that I my luck kept me off the street because I only had forty dollars in my pocket when I arrived, and that ran out quickly. My buddy’s friend allowed me to live with him and then I soon moved upstairs in that apartment building. The gentleman I lived with on Sutter street had just lost a lover whose name was also Joel, but I digress.
RW and I met soon after and hit it off pretty well.
I thought so too..
We both loved music, books, and art. Our conversations ranged from Sarah Vaughn to Vaughn Bode, from Richard Wright to Richard Kern. He worked in the library at San Francisco State and my grandmother had worked as one of the first black librarians in North Carolina back in the 1940’s. I love a well hung mind and we fell in pretty easily.
He is alluding to more than my mind here; which is sad cause he gave my ‘well hung’ self a lot of grief over our sexual and emotional union; He constantly denied our relationship as well as our intimacy; And though we shared many similar interest in the arts, he was constantly undermining our joint creative efforts to only serve his interest; Our sexual reality was all about his satisfaction and he was more than comfortable to leave mine on the back burner..which he did for the first two and half years of our affair. By the time he realized I had desires too, he did too little to make much difference.
The possibility of this relationship as being an exploration between the realms of creativity and madness solidified for me while I was reading the Paulo Coelho article. Leaving North Carolina was similar to what he called “ploughing the field.” According to Coelho, “a good creator must be constantly turning over his values and must never be contented with anything he thinks he understands.” I had never been in a sexual relationship with another man, but we got along on so many other levels that such issues felt irrelevant to me. I knew that I had unresolved issues from my father and step dad and, on some subconscious level, felt that here may be a chance to sort some of those.
Blood confused me with regards to race; cause though he spoke a mean ethnocentric game..he put way more time into preserving relationships with white persons both in NC and in California; in one instant, I vividly recall, he attempted to have us befriend a homophobic white neo racist, simply so he could smoke weed with the cat; blood had more interest in his white associates and friends than black queers; and kinda’ avoided most obviously gay black people. Oh, his favorite term in them days, was ‘sort through’ –sort of a catch all for the idea that he was trying to move from one form of think’n to arrive at a new ..just he never arrived, he just sorted and sorted, often pushing me futher and futher away via , lies, contradictions, disinterest, and general contempt. I think he like’d the idea of black on black, but never really made it real with him and I; if found connivance in the associations with my other black friends, cause they had the connections and materials that he sought for himself, not because he was really into a black on black solidarity.
White privilege runs rampant in San Francisco, so finding solidarity with another black man felt good to me. The “us against the world” vibe spurred us on to new realms of expression. We both loved music. In fact, one of his friends had opened one of the first dance music record stores in San Francisco (BPM).
What blood doesn’t know about that moment he met the ower of BPM records, was that man and I had been having an debate about homosexual love and that man felt it was not possible (even though he is straight); When I approached blood that night on the street, my friend felt nothing towards him and in fact found him pointless and could not understand my attraction to blood in that instant. When blood found out that I was getting music and weed deals from the man, he immediately began brown nosing him for similar opportunities. Often the man spoke badly of blood and distrustful of my desire of him.We met while they were in the process of moving the store’s inventory to a new location in Hayes Valley. Later, we saved the money to purchase turntables, a mixer, and other DJ equipment. We fought here and there, but I felt up to the mental challenge and it brought us together. I enjoyed the crucible of ideas and ideals.
they have a busy 
d men, however, just a glance at they covers..and my gaydar hit the roof of my brain..maybe it's just me..but i don't think so..esp. wit the cover looking good with Atwood from Noah's Ark series (now dead in the warters of cable tv); I'm sorry, but i'm not a fan of Noah's ark, and i wouldn't have been bloods fan either had i not at least tried to stomach the first season on DVD, doubt i'll be rushing to see the next season anyway soon..i guess it works for some young uban b boys but for me the characters where a bit too 'stupid' queer..and i didn't really care about their drama..not really; 
for example, "
Based on Sam Greenlee's controversial novel, THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR is a hard-hitting shocker that depicts a world in which the long-suppressed black man fights back with a vengeance. Director Ivan Dixon's uncompromising adaptation was relegated to bottom-rung status upon its release, and it subsequently slipped into oblivion for decades until the film was rediscovered and released on DVD in 2004. Lawrence Cook plays Dan Freeman, a head-nodding, smiling African-American who impresses his CIA cohorts with his winning demeanor. What they don't realize is that Freeman's friendly façade is nothing more than a mask for a deep seated hatred of white people. When he returns to his Chicago hometown, Freeman uses his newly acquired knowledge to organize an underground militant movement that revolts against the very army that trained him. 
like i'm always look'n for images/ideas of myself; and though i don't talk about it directly here much, i be looking for fags, or queers if that makes you feel better;
