My wife and were encouraged to buy our first home by the low home prices, low percentage rates and the first time buyer tax credit. Both of us spent our young adult lives in situations that produced some poor decision-making. Fortunately we wised up in time to avoid the predatory loan period that sent the economy in such a downward spiral.  We enjoy the simple things, which helps our situation, given that we don’t have a great deal of money due to saving plans initiated in our twenties and early thirties. What we can afford is much less than some of our friends, and we are comfortable with that. You’d be surprised at how just mentioning that you’re house hunting will have the people around you spending your money.How much square footage does a person or family need anyway? Actually there is an answer to that, about 500 sq. ft. per person. If you are a family of five, you are mathematically justified in buying or building a 2,500 sq. ft. home. You should be comfortable within that calculated square footage +/- 15%, I’ll give you that. So a family of five would enjoy as small as a 2,175 sq. ft. home and be comfortable or as large as a 2,875 sq. ft. and not be wasteful. Houses have simply become larger because of poor housing design, poor knowledge of space relationships and unqualified designers. In Architecture, we’re taught and understand that architecture is space for humans. This is why I usually take issue with someone being labeled ”the architect of the blah, blah blah movement…and so on.” I understand completely that many of us no longer put away our summer clothes in the winter. Many of our lifestyle changes put new demands on residential architecture. Our children spend less time in yard because of everything from video games to team practice. In turn, home buyers no longer require big yards and as a result there has been a decrease in lot size since the mid 1980′s. We don’t check out books any longer, we buy them. Our parents only purchased LP’s of artists they truly loved, and simply listened to the radio for everything else. Nowadays we have to have every CD (formally cassette tape) and DVD (formally VHS) and those collections need space too. With all this to incorporate in to our human lives, our belongings, we trust non-design professionals to design our homes. Architects have been removed from the process. Today’s developers buy from cad techs or draw floor plans themselves with little or no review by an architect or a design professional.

To design is to identify a design problem, i.e. a scope of work. How do I ,the designer, provide usable space for X amount of users. The scope of work for residential architecture is to provide the users an efficient use of three-dimensional space, materials and finishes. A majority, in my opinion, of today’s homes solve the problem ONLY by throwing more space at it! I think making rooms roomy rather than incorporating an efficient use of three dimensional space is costly and very unnecessary.

Less is More…

KoOL a

Some credit has to be given to the home buyer as well, the “big = comfort” ideology is both true and false depending on the user. That would mean that the 4,600 sq. ft house that your friends, family of three, just lost to foreclosure was a wee-bit too big for them. It also suggests that the way the family lives is so unorganized that more space was needed to accommodate their life style.  Also, 100% financing doesn’t help either. Actually, I don’t care how much house you own as long as you can afford it. Knock yourself out! When you can pay your bills it’s no one’s business what size house you have.

Today I heard a number of remarks of how Dr. Gates should have been grateful that neighbors protected his home by calling the police when they believed there was foul play. This is true. After all I’d be very grateful if one of my neighbors called the police after seeing someone trying to enter my home. I don’t want neighbors making judgement calls as to whether or not that person belongs or not. I agree that the police are able to handle that. It’s apparently not commonly understood that Dr. Gates is thankful and has express thanks for the police visiting  his property. I believe that it is easier to dismiss Dr. Gates as ungrateful rather than deal with the poor behavior and the on going condescending tones and abuse of authority exercised by police officers when dealing with black men, something I have experienced over and over in my lifetime. Dr. Gates has been reported to have been behaviing poorly himself for which he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct befor the charges were dropped.

I too have experienced the very same situation. Trying to get into my locked car at Quail Springs Mall in Oklahoma City and attempting to climb up to the balcony of my apartment in Norman, Oklahoma. Sometimes you just lock your keys in your car or simply run out of the house without them. Everyone has experienced this at one time or another. Unfortunately, when you find yourself needing to break in to your own property, it tends to draw attention and occasionally law enforcement.

The relationship between black America and the police has never been the same as it is for white America. Anyone that would dispute that probably has not the intellectual capacity to understand the balance of my opinion as one will either care or not care for facts and the truth. I’d submit that my experience with the police is probably common with the majority of black males in America. It isn’t all bad, but the bad surly stands out.

Christmas Eve 1996  I locked my keys in my car at Quail Springs Mall. First the mall security parked adjacent to me in the row, but a row away from where I was. He did not approach me. I saw him, and I even waived. A minute or so later the police showed up. 3 squad cars and six cops worth all for little ole me, 6′-0″ black male with dreadlocs attempting to negotiate a locked car door in broad daylight with a coat hanger that I found on the ground all while waiving to parking lot security. Now, I’ve witnessed officers opening cars at least 3 or 4 times in my lifetime with a slim-jim but these officers put me in the squad car and told me to sit tight and they’d call a lock smith. The lock smith opened my car and i had to write him a check for $136.00. The officers asked me if they could look in the glove compartment of my car for my documents while I was made to stay in the police car. I was finally let out of the squad car after an hour. I had to return my purchases for the day as I didn’t realize, while spending, I was going to have to write $136 check a few hours later. I was not allowed the least expensive options like letting me get in my on car with the clothes hanger nor was I offered any assistance other than getting into the squad car.

1998 I found myself locked out of my apartment around 11:00 pm after running to my car for a notebook and some cd’s. I walked around to the office of the complex looking to find someone on duty that might assist me. It went through my head that I should have read through that stack out paper work that came along with my lease agreement so I’d know what I was supposed to do in this situation. I went around to the balcony which overlooked the pool. I started climbing up to my balcony from the patio rail below. Once on my balcony I found my patio door unlocked but only able to open a few inches. As I jiggled with the door multiple flash light beams appeared just as I got the door to open. The guys downstairs Identified themselves as “Norman PD” and ask me what I was doing. I told them I locked myself out and if they’d ”come on up” I’d show them my ID and lease. As I walked the short 10-15 feet from the patio door to the front door I could hear that there were already officers at my front door. I opened the door and let the officer in. I said “I need to get my lease out of the kitchen draw and get my ID from my wallet on the drawing table.” At this point in my life, I know I need to tell the officer what I intend to do before I even move. I know not to give the officer any reason to suspect that I intend to harm him or do something stupid. I then put my hands up, as I was going to turn and walk away from him and I wanted him to be able to see my hands. He reacted to that by saying “will you put your damn hands down!”

Now pause and just think about that for a second….

I suppose that he chose to interpret my actions as taunting him. His tone of voice changed as he asked if I had any drugs in the house. I suppose his eyes grew big upon seeing my Rastafarian flag, Bob Marley posters, Lion and star of David images and paraphernalia. I imagine he thought there to be some weed/ pot/ ganjah in my apartment. The next few weeks there were marked and unmarked police cars circling my block and in at least one case sitting outside my apartment. I imagine waiting to see if anyone was coming and going from my place as they suspect now that I am a drug dealer.

2009 Race problems in America will not improve until we talk about the racial conditions honestly with open input from both sides of the fence. White America is going to have to consider stories like mine and choose to make a conscience effort to reverse some of the conditioning that causes it. Black America is going to have to work and wait patiently for old conditioning to end. The best of us would benefit from such discussions. The worst of us are fully aware that such talks could compromise closely held social advantages of the status quo and will not now and never have anything to do with fixing it.

KoOL a

“Tonight… gonna leave that 9 to 5 up on the shelf and Just enjoy yourself. Oooh, let the magic in the music get to you. Life ain’t so bad at all… If you live it of the wall!”

So dance! Get of the wall. Don’t be a wall flower. Get into it. Get involved. ALL OF WHICH IS TRUE and good for Michael Jackson and each and everyone of us.”Off the wall” can move you because MJ is simply stating that your life can be so much more if you just make a conscience effort to stop standing by, standing around, STANDING ON THE WALL. After all, true freedom is leaving behind ones troubles and leaping to the front of the movement and the time. There are two types of people in this world, people that are lead and people that follow. It’s a real freedom to live life off the wall. To be a creator, an innovator and a leader. Dare to be different. Be in front. Be a leader. Stand before all of those that are afraid to stand before the rest. Live your life off the wall!

Rest in Peace Michael Jackson…

KoOL a

I was surfing various forums looking for a real discussion on Christianity and found the following question:

Is it better to be a Christian or Christ like?

There were many responses, non of which caught my until I fumbled across this Answer:

 INFINITELY AND ETERNALLY BETTER than both is, believe in Jesus alone for salvation, which is the ONLY WAY to get into heaven. Salvation is a FREE GIFT that happens in a split second when you believe in Jesus! It is impossible to lose or “leave” salvation (John 6:39-40, 1 John 5:13). The truth about Jesus is that the only way to be saved and to get into heaven and avoid being sent to eternal hell, is by believing in faith alone that Jesus, who is God, died for our sins on the cross as FULL PAYMENT for all our sins, and then Jesus rose from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Believe this and you will be in heaven, no matter what!

Allow me to take issue with this. The above-mentioned  illustrates a level of UNDERstanding that, in my opinion, is the base of the contradiction that Christianity faces. The faces of Christianity today are those in the public eye whom behave and carry on in a manner that surely would not be approved by Jesus Christ. WWJD? Well for starters I doubt Jesus would X out the word Christ in Christmas. I doubt Jesus would spit on and shoot at people coming and going from an abortion clinic. I doubt Jesus would support the type of hatred that would make all Muslims enemies of the United States because of the actions of a few extreamist. After all, the imperial knights of the ku klux klan are Christian extremist are they not? I’m sure Jesus would not support the classicism in America that basically supports the idea that poor people deserve to suffer today because they didn’t do better as children or made mistakes in the past that will take years to overcome. I don’t think Jesus would agree with the privileged of today, put there by the criminal activity of their grandfathers and great grandfathers, looking down upon some 15year old motherless and fatherless child in the ghetto and asking him to pull himself up by his bootstraps! What if you don’t have any friggin boots? I’m sure Jesus would not approve of the authority of one person being used as a tool against another person in a manner that is disrespectful and cruel.  I believe the good book says to do onto others as ye shall have others do onto you. Would Jesus say it’s okay to to treat other human beings like animals simply because you disagree with their political ideas, economic philosophy or choice of music?

If you believe the above answer to be true, then you choose to believe that it’s okay to behave in a manner that is selfish and sinful as long as you accept Jesus Christ and ask for his forgiveness. Simplify your daily routine or your ways and actions as you see fit, but what kind of person with a soul walking on the dirt, drinking the water and breathing the air created by H.I.M. would simplify the words and direction of the messenger? If you choose to interpret the word because it’s convenient for you the so be it. I choose to believe that person to be a Xian or one who practices Xianity as Christ is no longer a part of what they practice. My understanding is that Jesus walked this earth in the place of the Most High, The Creator…God. His life was an example to all. I can’t imagine any other ideology used to describe what Christianity truly is. I believe it is to be Christ like. I choose not to believe that the Most High would allow me to conduct myself in any manner that I see fit and still allow me to enter the after life simply because I believed in his messenger but made little or no effort to follow him. You may justify your actions with scripture if you wish, but I’ll ask you this: “did Christians exist before your scripture?

Prove all things and hold fast to that which is good!

KoOL a

Please do not enter a political debate in the office, pub or elevator if you are unarmed with the most basic knowledge or understanding of politics. I have witnessed this over and over again since President Obama’s election. This is an emotionally charged transition of policies in America for Americans. There are untruths, half truths and all kinds of bad information floating around for those that look for it. There are influences of every kind too, from Rush-Hannity-Boortz to Malloy-Hartman-Rhodes. Stephanie Miller is my current favorite. Take heed to the following:

1. If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain so, Shut the Eff up! Get your ass registered, then we’ll talk. It’d be the very first question that i’d ask you.

2. Don’t ever repeat what you heard someone else say without checking it out for yourself, at least don’t try to pass it off as fact without fact finding…and not everything your pastor says is factual! you’ll just make yourself look stupid.

3. If you can’t maintain a political debate without getting emotional then don’t get involved. (thats why its always been said not to discuss politics or religion at work) A lot of us don’t even know how to debate and argue our points. It really is important to listen, you just make yourself look like an ass throwing out tanget subject matter because “you got a lot to say!” 

4. If you are out numbered, you’d better know more than they do and be ready to take them all on. This is for those of you that sit in an office with ten other people who are voicetress in opposition of your ideas and you decide to answer the bait, “who in the hell voted for this guy?”.

5. If you are stupid, please keep your voice down. It’s always the stupid people that want to make sure everyone around them hears their opinion, which is usually fact-less non-sense or something they half-ass understood.

6. Don’t get high off your own supply! You have a right to facts, but you can’t have your own facts. You can’t just start making shit up.

 “If some dude pulls a knife on you and all you can do is pull out a hand with some skin on it your instincts ought to tell you to RUN!” Richard Pryor.

KoOL a

Okay so in an effort to remain at least a little bit in touch with the tech world or the world of tech (whatever) I’ve recently made an attempt to get down with Twitter. I loaded the twitterberry app on my blackberry (which by the way if it weren’t for the facebook app that came on my phone I wouldn’t FB either) and started looking for friends. Of course Changa Masomakali was the first to pop up. The timeline listed his last entry in 2008 so that told me he was down long before me…which is par for the course.

I started following Erykah Badu (fatbellybella), Quest Love (qoolquest), Free (missfree) and Sheila E (nanere). It’s really hard for me, to date, to even find people on twitter but i was looking for people that might have minute to minute tweets i’d actually care to read.

So twitter is basically “microblogging”. Kinda like your “status” on FB or “updates” on myspace. That’s all it is. You start your twitter account. Start following people. People will start to follow you… I don’t know why. I have three followers. I don’t know them or know why in hell they’d care to know what the hell i’m doing.

Following Free – She tweets a lot in the mornings. Usually around the time she’s on the Ed Lover show on 105.1 FM in NYC. Mostly good morning stuff.

Following Qwest – He’s got some good comments coming in around 4-6 pm on the eastcoast. Most times its about the Fallen show which i guess he would be tweeting from behind his drums on stage…or where ever he sits when not on camera. Quest tweets a lot and even warns people not to follow him if you don’t have an unlimited data plan. He tweets from movies, parties, tour bus and urrywhere!

Following Badu – She tweets all hours but mostly between 3-5 am, which I’m sure is feeding time for her new born. Lots of youtube song and video posts in her tweets as if she were dj’g (tweetj’g if you will). Saturday she twittered her entire stalker encounter that was later in the news. She tweeted the entire ride from Dallas to Austin and even tweeted “if you here a gang of motorcycles thats me and my crew” and “running to stage”. Today she was tweeting about the 42 laws of maat. I haven’t studied the 42 laws in probably 15 years…I think i’ll print out a copy and see have far I’ve gone off the path.

Sheila E touched down in Tokyo and tweeted about the plane crashes on Sunday. She really doesn’t tweet much.

You can send a direct message to those you follow…none of the above have responded.

In the week i’ve spent on twitter i’ve concluded that talking to yourself has just become the new thing to do. Or is it talking to your device? That’s my wrap on twitter. I think I’m about done with it.

Follow me at twitter.com/KoOL_a, or don’t…I don’t care.

KoOL a

There is a poem in Anthony Browder’s The Browder File titled Transition 13.  The peom discusses learning, leading, forgeting and losing all in route to learning again. Usually when a culture revisits something lost we slap the tag Neo- in front of it. Neo-Soul, for example, suggests that Soul music was done away with, replaced or what have you. I wonder if Aretha Franklin would agree with that. I’m suggesting that as the particular thing we, a small selection of us, love and cherish grows into something that they, the balance of us, learns to enjoy, the original participants and fans become lost in the masses. We become lost in the changes to our thing. These changes become important to the new fans and are not usually pleasing to the old fans. Plainly said, I believe there is hip hop music and then there is rap music. The difference is very clear to me. “whatever happened to emcee?/times dun changed for the emcee!/ every women and man wanna emcee!/ you know what? EMCEEIN’ AIN’T FOR YOU!”

To quote the Teacher, hip hop is culture through music & rap is business music. When I was 11 years old, 1981, I would sit in my room in Oklahoma City trying to tune the radio to an AM station in Witchita Kansas that had a 90 min mix show on Saturday nights. The first time I heard Afrika Bam, Kurtis Blow, Biz, Roxanne Shante’, Just Ice, Busy Bee or Egyption Lover I was not in NYC, I was in OKC. The shw was 90 min which required a 90 min tape (45 min each side if ya can remeber that) I hoped that the flip would happen during the commercial break so I wouldn’t miss anything. I would then have 90 min of mixed hip hop freshness, the funky dope mix tape. I’d pop that into my daul cassette boom box and rock that tape silly for the rest of the week. Yea I’d make a dub for my friends and fellow hip hop headz, but not til next week because i’m the only one rockin’ this tape this week. Seek and ye shall find. Of couse the was no way in hell that KJ103 FM would play any rap music. They made it a point to dis rap on the air “KJ103, no rap, no crap, no noise pollution” or something like that. We had a black owned radio station in OKC, EZ107 but it went off air around 1979. There was R&B on KJ103, well Michael Jackson and Ray Parker Jr. type of stuff but nothing for me.

In 2001, my son turned 11. We were listening to the radio in Tulsa one summer day when I shared the above-mentioned with him. Every station we turned to was playing some rap music. I kept flipping thru the stations, which was irritating my son, because I require a little more than what Master P’s “bout it bout it” or whatever Mystical song was playing had to offer. “you’re weak ideas/ is irritatin’ my ears”

“if i don’t like it/ i don’t like it/ that don’t mean that i’m hatin’ it” As they say, it is what it is. So thanks to streaming radio stations. I now, in 2009, listen to Choice FM DJ 279′s Friday Nite Flava’s radio show every Friday afternoon for me but 9pm to midnight in the UK. I record the show using the freeware mp3mymp3. I have a fresh new mix every Friday. I don’t have the boom box anymore but the blackberry media player does just fine. There is no lil wayne or plies and very little highly commercialized rap music. I hear new music from Craig G, Special Ed and Chub Rock. There are plenty of Brittish emcees filtered in as well and I love the love they have for real hip hop music. Hip hop culture thru music. Seek and ye shall find. Grindin’ it out and monitoring the mix show while recording is how it started for me. I feel that I have the newest singles to hit the hip hop nation and i can again learn all the words to the rhymes before most people have ever heard the song.

” it aint nothin’ like/ it aint nothin’ like/ it aint nuthin’ like hip hop music!”

KoOL a

My family has become #1 in my life and has been for about 9 years. We now experience this world no different than anyone else. We share the same ups and downs as everyone else. We have made ever effort to live life, be happy and be good to this world and in return only ask that this world is good to us.

Somewhere, between parenting a teen, expensive automotive repairs, left over debt, career planning, career setbacks and filtering through the aftermath of some poor decisions and untimely choices I have lost my peace that I worked so hard to achieve many years ago. I lost my relationship with the Most High.

I imagine our usual paths of cyber (does anyone say that anymore) expression include, amoung many, myspace and facebook and I belong to both. My myspace page, as I see it now, represents me in my hip hop culture and my love of hip hop music and culture. Really my love of music in general. My facebook page is turning out to be very little more than an extension of my twenty year high school reunion. I mostly conduct myself as an adult there, nothing personal. I keep away from discussing things that mean something to me with many of those friends. I fear they wouldn’t be friends with me at all if discussions go beyond pop-culture, current events (within reason) or “remember when”. I went to high school in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in the 80′s. The “N” word was used regularly at my high school. I remember each at every face of each and every person that said it, and that does include the faculty. I don’t think anyone would really want to discuss that, not open and honestly.

My opinions are mine alone. When I share my opinions I will always qualify what I’m saying with “In my opinion” or “I choose to believe”. That doesn’t mean that I’m right or wrong, but when I have an opinion it is because I’ve taken the time to prove it to myself. I will listen to anyone that wishes to offer a different opinion and the information used to arrive at it. I am not above deferring to a better opinion based on better information, after all I want to believe in things that are true or as true as I know it to be. The Bible says “Prove all things and Hold fast to that which is Good” (1Thessalonians 5:21) I choose now and have chosen for a long time to live by that single verse.

I think it’s time that I strengthen that which I believe and believe in. I guess I realize that now. Now I have a reason to blog!

KoOL a