Soul on Rice...

Quite often people leave a legacy that reads like a byline; “Chad Bilyeu was a cosmopolitan epicure best known for his revolutionary contributions to education and his well-documented affairs with Scarlett Johannson and America Ferrera.” Such is life. I’m gearing up for Los Angeles, so I have to be in the byline frame of thought. In this age of extreme information dissemination often people don’t want to read a book or a magazine article or a Wikipedia entry; a sentence will do. Usually this sentence never does justice though. We are all complex characters; I like to think of individuals as their own entity. Everyone is amazing. Trust me. You can always learn something from any person; it’s just that most people don’t care to sit through the whole biopic. Some people get shafted and history ends up fucking them over. Booker T. Washington is viewed by many to have been an Uncle Tom. I think this to be an uneducated, unfair assessment of the man and his lifework. But, alas, Booker ain’t the man of the day. I prefer to revisit the life of a very extraordinary individual. He is well-known, but has left a very ambiguous legacy. His Wikipedia byline reads: “Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an author and a prominent American civil rights leader who began as a dominant member of the Black Panther Party.” Yeah, I guess that’s true, but people are missing out on a lot if that’s all they know about the man. Maybe I can help to clarify his legacy…

Born in Arkansas and ending up in Los Angeles as a teenager, Cleaver was well acquainted with the law. He got caught, like most teenagers do, with some weed, and spent years of his youth in juvenile hall. By the time he got incarcerated as an adult, first for possession of weed and then for assault with intent to murder, he was no stranger to imprisonment. While in prison Cleaver became involved with the Nation of Islam and found that writing served as his method of maintaining dignity and sanity. He is best known for his first book, Soul on Ice, which served as a compilation of his prison writings. The book was critically acclaimed across racial divisions and Cleaver soon found himself quite the celebrity. He was paroled in 1966 and became editor of Ramparts Magazine, the same institution that noticed his writing while he was in jail and got him his book deal. A self-admitted rapist, Cleaver admits at a certain point of his life he felt that the rape of white women was “an insurrectionary act” He also admits that he practiced rape by raping Black women in the Black community. Cleaver puts all of his shortcomings, faults and societal disadvantages on paper for the world to see. “I’m perfectly aware that I’m in prison, that I’m a Negro, that I’ve been a rapist, and that I have a Higher Uneducation. I never know what significance I’m supposed to attach to these factors.” By the book’s end stands a man that has transcended his past crimes and prejudice; a paradigm of self-medication without any self-prescribed reefer or doctor-prescribed Ritalin. So it seems… After his release, he joined the Ramparts staff and shortly thereafter met Huey P. Newton and the Black Panthers. Cleaver was attracted to the militant nature of the group. He met the Black Panthers in 1966 when they were commissioned to provide protection for Betty Shabazz at a second anniversary memorial for the assassination of Malcolm X. Cleaver described the event as such in an essay entitled “The Courage to Kill: Meeting the Panthers."

Suddenly the room fell silent. The crackling undercurrent that for weeks had made it impossible to get one’s point across when one had the floor was gone; there was only the sound of the lock clicking as the front door opened, and then the soft shuffle of feet moving quietly toward the circle… I spun round in my seat and saw the most beautiful sight I had ever seen: four black men wearing black berets, powder blue shirts, black leather jackets, black trousers, shiny black shoes-and each with a gun! In front was Huey P. Newton with a riot pump shot gun in his right hand, barrel pointed down to the floor. Beside him was Bobby Seale, the handle of a .45 caliber automatic showing from its holster on his right hip, just below the hem of his jacket. A few steps behind Seale was Bobby Hutton, the barrel of his shotgun at his feet. Next to him was Sherwin Forte, an M1 carbine with a banana clip cradles in his arms.

After their public split, Huey P. Newton said that Cleaver was “obsessed with the gun” and “looking for a father figure.” Possibly. The Black Panther Party made the gun look sexy. For a convict looking for a father-figure, a model to base his Black manhood upon, the Panthers were like some kick-ass angels of death. America had never been presented with a revolutionary force before or since as galvanizing. Mao said that power comes from the barrel of a gun, but Newton and the Panthers took this to mean that the gun was the equalizer against the oppressor. It granted them tantamount footing with which they could begin their revolutionary agenda. Like all Blacks before him, Cleaver was only privy to the non-violent methods that characterized most civil rights protests before 1966. Cleaver can be blamed as the impetus for the fixation concerning violence that many Black Panthers developed.

Shortly thereafter, Huey gets charged with a bullshit murder rap by the fascist pigs of Oakland. During his time in prison awaiting trial, Cleaver becomes the figurehead of the Black Panther Party. Cleaver was a master wordsmith and firebrand. He shocked his audience with fiery, precise rhetoric that galvanized the American masses. His words moved people young and old, black and white alike that had grew tired of America and their racist, sexist bullshit. He was the creator of the phrase, “You’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.” The iconic picture of Newton in the bamboo wicker chair holding the spear in one hand and the rifle in the other was Cleaver’s idea. That image is indelibly imprinted in the minds of the people as THE picture of Huey P. Newton, and arguably it was this picture that created a legend larger than Huey himself. He spoke of the Minister of Defense in language of apotheosis. “Yes, Huey is our Jesus, but want him down from the cross.” He considered him to be “the dynamo, the source, the prime mover.” His respect for Huey was genuine and honest. These two had a public disagreement that resulted in the fragmentation of an organization that America desperately needed. As is often the case between Black American intellectuals, there exists a irreconcilable rift between conflicting philosophies that is never mollified through compromise, but rather aggravated by hubris and the unwillingness of leaders to communicate. Basically, the same situation that exists in the dichotomous American government.

These insidious crackers that ran the FBI came up with this group in 1956 called the Counter Intelligence Program, or Cointelpro for short. Their mission was to disrupt and destroy any groups that threatened the white-anglo power structure of America. Any groups with ideologies dissident to that of those sexist, racist cocksuckers became a target. Groups they profiled and infiltarted included the Communist Party of the United States of America, the Socialist Workers Party, the Nation of Islam, Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the American Indian Movement, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Weather Underground, and for reasons of affirmative action, the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan. One of Cointelpro’s prime objectives was to stop the rise of a “Black messiah” who could unify Black Americans under one common cause. J. Edgar Hoover had a hard-on when it came to the destruction of Newton and the Panthers. In September of 1968, when Black Power became known to the general public after Tommie Smith and John Carlos threw up the fist after respectively winning first and third places in the 200 meter race in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Hoover called the Black Panther Party "The greatest threat to the internal security of the country." After 1969, the Party became the primary focus of Cointelpro’s operations. Cointelpro used various methods of subterfuge to disrupt the Black Panther Party from within. Spies were embedded into the group, they did their best to keep prominent members tied up in legal battles, so that they became trapped within in legal limbo; misinformation in the form of cartoons that promoted the fallacious belief that the Black Panther Party was racist and planned to kill whites were circulated in white and Black communities as if they were official Party information. Cointelpro would even duplicate the handwriting of certain members and send letters to other branches which created internal turmoil within the Party. In certain cases they committed straight-up murder, as was the case with the assassination of the 21-year old civil rights dynamo, Fred Hampton, Sr., who they killed in his own home after he and others in the house, including his pregnant wife, who took one in the leg, were drugged by a muthafucking race traitor of a snitch, William O’Neal. Their methods proved to be quite successful.

After Huey P. Newton was released from jail pending a retrial, Cleaver had already left the country. Two days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 6, 1968, the Oakland Police engaged in a melee with some Black Panthers. The end result was that Li’l Bobby Hutton was unjustifiably assassinated and Eldridge Cleaver was shot through the leg and apprehended even though he exited a house butt-naked so that the police would know he was unarmed. Cleaver was later charged with three accounts of attempted murder of a police officer and three counts of assault on a police officer. Strange, as the only folks murdered and wounded were Black Panthers. After he got out about two months later on bail, he was ordered to return to prison for violating his parole. Cleaver said “the hell with that shit” and fled the country. This event happened right after Cleaver’s unsuccessful 1968 Presidential campaign in which he ran as a candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party.

His exile sent him first to Cuba. Unlike Newton who later fled to Cuba in 1977, Cleaver did not enjoy his time there. Cleaver claims he experienced the same institutional racism that was present in America in Cuba, and that the country did everything possible to hide the history of Antonio Maceo Grajales, a Black Cuban who was the true father of the Cuban Revolution. From there he went to Algeria where he met up with his fine-ass wife, Kathleen Cleaver, who was pregnant at the time with their first child. It was while in Algeria that Huey and Eldridge had their feud. Cleaver organized a faction of the Black Panther Party in Algeria but maintained communications with the Party leadership based in America. Cleaver actually hosted Dr. Timothy Leary and his wife in Algeria after he had been sprung out of jail in America by the Weathermen. Cleaver admitted to doing LSD with the good doctor, but later thought Dr. Leary to be a nut for promoting this drug to the youth and the revolutionary masses as “conscious expanding.” Cleaver’s stance was that to run a successful revolution, it is somewhat important that the revolutionaries not be tripping balls off LSD. “[Y]our god is dead because his mind has been blown by acid,” is what Cleaver told Leary. Leary told Cleaver he was “a paranoid nigger.” Cleaver then placed Leary under “revolutionary arrest” and all of the white liberals got mad because Cleaver wanted them to stay off of acid. When Cleaver’s troop in Algeria got busted up, Dr. Leary was transported back to America and he and Cleaver eventually ended up in the same federal prison in San Diego. Most of Cleaver’s former revolutionary comrades and friends wrote him off in the late 1970s. He and Dr. Leary remained friends.

In 1971 the FBI got really busy with their misinformation campaign against the Panthers. Cleaver was getting phony letters from his “comrades” claiming Newton was disgusted with him. Newton was getting phony letters from anonymous folks that claimed Cleaver was planning on assassinating him. Their alliance fell apart live on television. February 28, 1971, AM San Francisco had Newton on. Cleaver phoned in from Algeria and began firing off about inside Party business on air. Cleaver dismissed Newton from the Panthers, and then Newton dismissed Cleaver from the Panthers. The Black Panthers split into two factions, a left and right wing. The right wing, which consisted of Newton’s supporters, were focused upon the survival programs and empowering impoverished communities. The left wing, Cleaver’s faction, included the notoriously violent New York 21 faction of the Black Panthers and others like them that believed that the emphasis upon the survival programs was just mere pussy footing around the true issue which was the inevitable armed revolution that was about to pop off. The two factions never reconciled. David Hilliard, in a letter to the Black Panther’s European office, called Cleaver a “murderer” and “a punk without genitals.” Elaine Brown, the last leader of the Black Panther Party, said Cleaver was a “power crazy nigger.” Many Panthers also questioned Cleaver’s sexuality. Newton made the point that Cleaver was looking for a father figure (which he had seemed to have in Newton) and erroneously thought the Black Panthers to be “the Revolution and the Party” as opposed to being “a political vehicle through which the people could express their revolutionary desires.” Some thought Cleaver mistook fame as support from the people. The feud drew parallels to other great Black leaders that could not amicably work out their differences. Folks like Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, the Black Panthers themselves and Ron Karenga’s militant group US, and 50 Cent and the Game.

The fragmentation of the American Black Panther Party marked the end of the international branches of the Party. Cleaver resigned from the Algerian branch and after his Black Liberation Party and Right On! Magazine ventures both failed, he illegally moved to France alone where he later met up with his wife Kathleen and their two children in January of 1972. France proved to be the location of Cleaver’s incredible transformation. He was fairly broke during his time there as most of the proceeds he had gained from Soul on Ice and from a proposed book were mostly depleted and the stipends he received from China ceased. As aforementioned, Cleaver saw racism in the Communist Cuba, and this began his reevaluation of his opinions concerning political philosophy. In Algeria, he was called a “kulasha” (slave) by the Arabs and also was told that Black Americans were considered arrogant due to “the way [they] move and carry their bodies.” He recounted an event in a French television station in which he was watching the defeated American troops pull out of Vietnam. He was sitting in between the editor of Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine and a reporter from France’s Le Monde Diplomatique newspaper. The two were laughing at the scene on the television and described the “U.S. Marines as nothing more than Boy Scouts who couldn’t win a fight against an old ladies club.” Cleaver quickly retorted to the French pussy-ass muthafucker, “You know what man, there was a day when you were mighty glad to see the U.S. military liberate you from him.” Cleaver then nodded towards the Mein Kampf fucking German bastard and got up and went home. He was becoming increasingly homesick and felt like a fugitive. He wanted to return to America, but his return meant facing numerous charges. The ultimate injury came when his children begged him not to speak English because it “hurt their ears.” Then his son began to play soccer. Cleaver started to think suicidal thoughts and decided to act on them.

At his residence in Paris, Cleaver eats dinner with his family for what he thinks will be the last time. He didn’t reveal his intended suicide to them. He then left for his private apartment in Cannes. There he sat on the balcony, pistol in hand, contemplating his death. For whatever reason, his attention was drawn to the nearly full moon. As he continued to stare at the moon, it began to flicker and transmogrify. He saw the image of his own face in the moon. This image changed into Fidel Castro. That image transformed into Mao Tse-tung. Mao became Marx. Then the image disappeared. After that he saw the face of Jesus Christ in the moon. It was the one face that did not disappear. Cleaver began to shake uncontrollably. He put the pistol down, fell to his knees and began to cry. The Lord’s Prayer, the 23^rd Psalm, which he hadn’t thought of in decades, came into his mind. He remembered that Kathleen had brought a Bible that his mother had given them before they went into exile. From his bookshelf he located the Bible, but rummaging frantically through the pages, he couldn’t locate the 23^rd Psalm. He describes himself as “overwhelmed with a spirit of peace and total exhaustion.” He then put the Bible on a table and the gun next to it and went to sleep. When he woke the next day, he felt recharged and brand new. He claimed, “I had received a spiritual message that I must surrender to the authorities, go into that prison cell, and I would come out the other side. There was no fear. I just knew I would come out the other side.” He headed back to Paris to tell Kathleen the whole incident and began to make plans about how to return to America.

Nikki Giovanni wrote in a magazine called Encore, “The news from Paris, France, that Black fire-eating, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-middle-class militant Eldridge Cleaver is considering a return to the United States is not surprising. That he left in the first place and the circumstances of his leaving are perhaps the real news story.” Many others insinuated that Cleaver had somehow been shitting through the same straw as the capitalist powers he once vowed to destroy. In May of 1973 Huey P. Newton was interviewed by Playboy Magazine. Much of the interview dealt with the recent split with Cleaver and Newton’s feelings regarding his former comrade. He described Cleaver as “a very disturbed and unhappy person” and blamed him for ‘the filthy-speech movement” which resulted in most of the Black Panther Party, during Huey’s imprisonment, “[going] into [places such as the Black church] to give political-education classes for the general community and [using] “motherfucker” every other word.” He also challenged Cleaver’s sexuality, commenting on the fact that rapists that he was privy to in prisons usually became homosexuals within the penitentiary. He believed that Cleaver had issues with his masculinity and that thought of the gun as a metaphorical cock. “When he came out of prison he became so attached to the Panthers and the idea of the gun. I think the gun was a substitute for his penis; he called it his "rod." Or his johnson. Newton also went on to describe an alleged encounter between Cleaver and James Baldwin, whose writings Cleaver had lambasted in his essay “Notes on a Native Son”…

Well, there was something that happened on the occasion when he and I met Baldwin. We met Baldwin shortly after he returned from Turkey, I guess in 1966 or the early part of '67. Eldridge had been invited to a party to meet him, and he asked me to go along. So we went over to San Francisco in his Volkswagen van and we got there first. Soon after, Baldwin arrived. Baldwin is a very small man in stature; I guess about five-one. Eldridge is about six-four, you know; at the time, he weighed about 250 pounds. Anyway, Baldwin just walked over to him and embraced him around the waist. And Eldridge leaned down from his full height and engaged Baldwin in a long, passionate French kiss. They kissed each other on the mouth for a long time. When we left, Eldridge kept saying, "Don't tell anyone." I said all right. And I kept my word -- until now.

Because Eldridge Cleaver never disputed these claims, they did much to effeminate his image. Most Americans who had been privy to his exploits in America considered him to be a pale comparison of his former self as well as a possible traitor and government informant. Cleaver held firmly to his original position that the political climate of America had changed with the resignation of Nixon and the end of the Vietnam War and he now felt that he could finally get a fair trial. His critics contended there was little change in America concerning police brutality or racism and that this was a mask for more clandestine affiliations with American authorities. In a 1975 interview with Henry Louis Gates, Cleaver, still in exile in Paris, stated that he considered the Third World revolutions as “a skin game.” He also acknowledged his concern with class struggle. “Ultimately,” Cleaver claims, “all struggle is Class struggle; but you cannot overlook national questions.” He thought that Black Americans needed to eliminate all classes within the race and this would create unity amongst Black Americans. He also acknowledged that Marx was a racist, therefore Black Americans should not blindly except his philosophies as intrinsic to their struggle. As noted by Kathleen Rout in her biopic of Cleaver, “what was gone was the rhetoric, the anger, and the sense that he part of a worldwide, historic uprising of the “colored” masses.”

In September 1975, about a month before his return to the United States, Cleaver tells a reporter about how he had been studying Eastern erotic literature as of late. He stated in the interview, “My whole motivation is because… I’ve always been keen about sex. I like it. So you know the whole thing about the Kama Sutra. There’s something to learn there, right?” He now considered himself a student of these fucking philosophies and with this studying came his soi-disant title of “tantric guru.” Cleaver said the title was “a label I bestowed upon myself, because I know who I am. I’ve mastered it. That’s why I made these pants.” The Black Panther Party was always fashionable in the mostly black uniform highlighted by the powder blue shirt, but never would the average American had predicted that a former revolutionary would enter the world of fashion. Like everything else he seemed to do in his life, Cleaver’s pants had a philosophy. Cleaver sought to liberate men from the oppressiveness of the white man’s pants. He became “interested in the crime of rape and why people rape.” He claimed that his pants would abolish the crime of indecent exposure. Cleaver planned to create “decent exposure” with his new pants. One interviewer noted that the pants “flaunt[ed] the male sex organ so brazenly that no photo can be printed in a family magazine.” He stated that his inspiration for the pants “goes back to the problems of human sexuality and of… what I call the right to fuck[.]”

Armed with his pants, new philosophies and Jesus, Cleaver contacted the U.S. embassy in Paris. Within three weeks he had the necessary papers to enter the United States, where he was to be arrested immediately upon arrival. November 15, 1975, the two Cleaver children were flown to Pasadena to stay with Granny. Kathleen stayed behind to finish packing up the stuff in Paris. Eldridge himself arrived in New York at 5pm to no supporters, detractors, friends or family, just one Black and one white FBI agent who placed him under arrest. On November 19, 1975, the same day Cleaver was transported to San Diego, Chino State Penitentiary to be exact, the New York Times ran an article written by Cleaver entitled, “Why I Left the U.S. and Why I Am Returning.” In it, Cleaver states…

With all of its faults, the American political system is the freest and most democratic in the world. The system needs to be improved, with democracy spread to all areas of life, particularly the economic. All of these changes must be conducted through our established institutions, and people with grievances must find political methods for obtaining redress.

New Year’s Eve of 1975 Cleaver attempted to contact the Black Panther Party via collect call from Chino State. A Black Panther answers the phone. When asked if they would except a collect call from Eldridge Cleaver, the guy first laughed, said “Wait a minute,” and took about ten minutes to take the call off hold and say, “We will not accept the call.” The Black Panther Party’s lawyer Gerry would not represent him due to “other commitments.” The Black Panther newspaper called for justice for Cleaver and a fair trial in which they predicted the people he once attempted to represent would turn on him. The Black Panthers also blamed Cleaver for the deaths of Li’l Bobby Hutton and Sam Napier, the former of which had been murdered by men loyal to Cleaver under pretenses of snitching, but it was believed that his execution had not been mandated by Cleaver. Cleaver had no friends from the movement left just as he had no friends from his years before the movement began. He had become forgotten during his years in exile, and upon his return he was considered non-threatening.

In Chino State existed a prison ministry group called "The God Squad." During their prayer meetings other prisoners would throw bars of soap and flick water from brushes dipped in commodes at the Christians. Because he didn’t want to appear soft amongst the other prisoners, Cleaver initially refused to join the prayer services even though he desired to. After a few months he eventually joined them in fellowship. The word spread rapidly that Eldridge Cleaver had found Christ. An article was written in the Los Angeles Times that mocked Cleaver’s conversion. Cleaver contacted the press shortly thereafter and gave interviews concerning the validity of his Christianity. While he got streams of hate mail from former comrades and supporters, he began to get an abundance of letters from Christians, mostly white Americans, who empathized with his plight and truly believed that he had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Cleaver still had a one million dollar bail to deal with, and until he could ascertain such an amount, it seemed likely that he would remain in prison until his retrial. A wealthy and extremely pious Philadelphian named Arthur DeMoss, president of National Liberty Corporation, read the article concerning Cleaver in the Los Angeles Times and decided to offer his assistance. DeMoss considered himself a former sinner, a number runner-turned-insurance mogul, who was able to give his life to Christ, so he sought out individuals such as Cleaver to help them during their transition to Christianity. In June 1976, DeMoss was able to visit Cleaver in Chino. Reportedly, the two talked for a couple of hours discussing things Christians talk about; mainly their former, more secular lives and Jesus. DeMoss went to his fellow white Christians with praise for Cleaver, and the white Christians showed their support in the form of contributions for Cleaver’s bail. On Friday the 13^th, August 1976, Eldridge Cleaver was released in time for the weekend. He got a telly and spent the weekend with Kathleen booed up in San Francisco. That following Monday, he and Kathleen flew to Los Angeles so that Cleaver could see his mother for the first time in eight years.

That Wednesday, Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver were in San Diego where the Reverend Billy Graham was preaching at one of his crusades. Cleaver was able to meet with Graham personally. Cleaver had admitted to hating Graham at a point of his life, but now was actually anticipating the meeting. Without Kathleen present the two men prayed and talked for over an hour discussing things Christians talk about; mainly their former, more secular lives and Jesus. The one statement made by Graham that resonated the most with Cleaver was “Eldridge… one thing you must never forget-never embarrass the Lord.” Cleaver ended up on Meet the Press Sunday, August the 29^th. The questions included whether Cleaver had made a deal with authorities or not, to which he maintained that he had not. Cleaver noted “deep transformations in [his] own personal life” and that his opine had changed concerning how change should be administered within the country. Cleaver also assured the public that his conversion to Christianity was not a hoax nor a ruse to influence his trial. In reference to the Black Panther Party, Cleaver stated, “I think that we were a little naïve in our approach… that we were excessive in our language… that we scared a lot of people, not so much by our practices, our activities, but by the way that we described certain situations, and if I had to do it all over, with hindsight, I would do it differently.” This appearance was followed by a week of rest and relaxation at DeMoss’ Philadelphia home.

Cleaver announces to the public on September 14, 1976 that he is going on the lecture circuit as an evangelist. He had just signed with a national speakers’ bureau as well as ascertaining another book deal, this time the book dealing with spiritual and philosophical transformation. He was paired on a tour with Charles Colson, former special council to President Nixon. Colson was well-known as "Richard Nixon's hard man, the 'evil genius' of an evil administration.” He was responsible for leaking information from Daniel Elsberg’s psychiatric files to the press and was subsequently indicted in March of 1974 for conspiring to cover up the Watergate robbery. He pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was given a one to three year sentence, a $5000 fine and was disbarred. He did seven months at the Maxwell Correctional Facility, and was released early because of pertinent issues within his family. Upon his release he began Prison Fellowship, a penitentiary-based Christian organization that has of recent years worked closely with the George W. Bush presidential administration. Because of his celebrity status, Cleaver could consistently get booked on television or for whatever crusade was in session. However, many thought that his proselytizing did not have the emotional passion that Cleaver was characteristically known for. White Christians were frequently disappointed with Cleaver’s sermons. At the time, the Cleavers’ had more than $200,000 in outstanding bills. At all of his speaking engagements, Cleaver passed around the collection plate. During a sermon/barbecue in Orange County, it is rumored that Cleaver received $16,500 in donations. Cleaver had a set speech as an evangelist. He would speak of his disillusionment with communism and then his conversion to American patriotism and Christianity. His support of the right-wing became more vocalized as well as he would tout the politics of Henry Kissinger, criticize the NAACP, stir Soviet paranoia, and belittle the women’s liberation movement. He and Kathleen were officially baptized Sunday, the 10^th of October, 1976 in a hotel swimming pool in Burbank, California. Art DeMoss was present and smiling. Cleaver preached with white evangelicals until the spring of 1977 when he, Kathleen and DeMoss decided to start the Eldridge Cleaver Crusades, which was to be based out of Stanford, California. Cleaver’s plan was to become the Black version of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s PTL (Praise the Lord) Club. In May of 1979, Cleaver, with DeMoss’ funds, purchased 80 acres in Nevada which he planned to construct a “multimillion dollar facility” that would be the headquarters of his crusade. Shortly before this in 1978, Cleaver released Soul on Fire, an obvious attempt to capitalize on his former success. Because of certain omissions and inconsistencies within the book, it got panned and sold very poorly.

While attempting to solidify his new position as an evangelist, Cleaver simultaneously continued to expand upon his “sexual guru” role. The September 21, 1978 issue of Jet Magazine featured a second article on Cleaver and a picture of him modeling the infamous pants outside of his Los Angeles boutique that manufactured them. Jet succinctly described the “Cleavers” as having “two types of eye-catching pouches: one is oval shaped like a football player’s jockey cup and the other features a tubular shaped extension for the man’s penis and an adjoining smaller pouch for his testicles.” Their first article ran two years earlier had Cleaver describing what he thought to be the “fig leaf mentality.” The attempt to cover the penis was an attempt to destroy the “content of erotic art forms” because the sexual urges that looking at the penis produced actually resulted in a decrease in efficiency when dealing with capitalism. “Cock out” creates too much of a distraction for the average peasant to handle. For the perpetuation of the market system it was necessary to cover up the cock. In the second interview of 1978 Cleaver expands his philosophy concerning the “Cleavers.” Cleaver claimed that he was “very sexually warped” earlier in his life, but admitted that he had “studied as much about human sexuality as professional sexual therapists,” so he was able to overcome his deviant, sexual nature. He intended on forming a “finishing school for boys” so that they could learn proper manners and “how to go about getting themselves girls without having to resort to rape.” Also in his master plan was “a 24-hour rape hotline for men who have either committed rape or are on the verge of rape.” Even from a sciential standpoint the Cleavers were revolutionary. Cleaver claimed that “heat had a decomposing effect on the sperm and traditional pants press the penis under the belly. My pants take it back out.” Whereas western pants “castrated” the man, “Cleavers” “honored” the penis; this being contrary to traditional fashion honoring only “the intellect-the head and face.” Cleaver invested $42,000 of his own money to form Eldridge Cleaver Ltd. In addition to the boutique, he also owned a retail location in West Hollywood where the pants were sold for $20 to $30 a piece. Eldridge Cleaver humbly admitted that the “Cleavers” were “one of the best ideas I’ve ever had.”

In November of 1979 Cleaver pleaded guilty to three assault charges. The remaining attempted-murder charges were dropped. He was ultimately ordered to do 1200 hours of community service and probation. In 1980 Cleaver became affiliated with Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, and began to speak at functions supporting their ministry. While working with Unification Church, Cleaver began to organize former Muslims and transmogrified his Christianity into what he referred to as “Christlam.” He effectively ceased the operations of the Eldridge Cleaver Crusades, thus ending his relationship with DeMoss. In September 1980 he was quoted saying that the “dwelling place of God” was not in Mecca, but rather “in the male sperm.” He then created “the Guardians of the Sperm,” which served as a “social auxiliary” to his newly formed church in Oakland. He believed that the enemies of the sperm, “ignorant scientists and lesbian propagandists,” were constantly at work. To thwart these powers, Cleaver began to teach “Urban Geography” to the young men of his church. “Urban Geography” meant the following to Cleaver: “You see a good-looking woman on the street corner. Immediately you want to screw her. But you let her get away because you don’t know how to follow her. We teach pursuit.” In response to charges that he physically abused Kathleen, Cleaver retorts, “I don’t mind being known as a wife-beater. There are all kinds of institutions to serve these so-called battered wives. What nobody’s saying is that most of the time the bitch needed her ass kicked.”

In the summer of 1980, Cleaver wrote Dr. Huey P. Newton a letter in an attempt to fire up the revolution once again. He told Newton that “one of the best things that could happen in America is if you and I would bury our old hatchets, which in fact have been buried by time and events, and help constitute a force in America dedicated to serving our needs at this juncture.” He rallied against his former enemy, Ronald Reagan, and his run for the presidency. “Ronald Reagan is running for President… Gas, Food, Water and Time are running out.” He also stated that Blacks in the 80s were lacking any appropriate leadership. He thought that “everyone imprisoned under Richard Nixon” should be exonerated of their crimes. He appealed to Huey by admitting that “There is yet one more skeleton in the American closet: THE BLACK MAN. It’s time for us to come out. We need dramatic examples of conciliation and reconciliation amongst Black men. Out common denominator is out ethnic gender. Our standard is one drop of Black blood and a set of balls to be eligible for membership.” Dr. Newton never issued a response. By September of the same year, Cleaver was endorsing Ronald Reagan for president; the same man who was quoted as saying in 1968, "If Eldridge Cleaver is allowed to teach our children, they may come home one night and slit our throats."

Figuring that she had been wasting her life, Kathleen and the Cleaver children moved to New Haven, Connecticut where she had just received a full scholarship to Yale University. Cleaver was left alone inside of California. He began to work as a tree manicurist for a Mormon fellow and lived in a rooming house with about nine others that did the same job. He continued writing and lecturing and began to make original flowerpots for sale. He finished his community service in June of 1982 and shortly thereafter joined the Mormon Church. Due to his dissatisfaction with President Carter, Cleaver continued along the path of his conservative politics. It was very strange that he was now supporting the same California senator that voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and refused to engage in a debate with him while the two were foes in 1968. In 1982, Cleaver gave up on his revolutionary pants and Christlam to become a staunch advocate of right-wing politics. At a speech at Yale in February of 1982 that was organized with the assistance of his separated wife, who was now an assistant professor, Cleaver tells the mostly Black audience, “Ronald Reagan has said that no longer will the Federal Government house, clothe, and feed Black people. I am glad about that because it will force Blacks to unify and lobby for their needs. Reagan had delivered to Black people a “Biblical message,” “Lazarus, go for yourself.”

Cleaver ran for House representative in February of 1984 against Representative Ron Dellums, former political ally of the Black Panther Party. He lambasted Dellums’ friend Jesse Jackson, claiming he was not the humanitarian he claimed to be, but rather a shifty politician playing the “race card” in an effort to further his own political career. Cleaver charged Dellums as “a pliable tool in the hands of the Marxist-Leninist puppet masters of Berkeley[.]” Cleaver was easily defeated by Dellums. He again tried to run for office in 1986 against Democrat Alan Cranston. Cleaver was now pro-death penalty, anti-abortion, anti-immigration and anti-welfare, stances of which did nothing towards his winning the Senate seat in Southern California. He declared Reagan as his hero. When asked if he had any other heroes, Cleaver mentions, “the Pope and John Wayne.” After he lost the election, Cleaver shifted his focus to other “really important issues, like the plight of retarded children.” After 1986 Cleaver became mostly forgotten by the general American public and when he was remembered, he was considered a charlatan. Bobby Seale says of Cleaver, “Eldridge Cleaver? I refuse even to talk to him… He’s not a true representative of the Black Panther Party. Eldridge was always trying to start a shoot-out while I was trying to organize breakfasts for children.” A greeting card was made with a picture of the Cleavers on it, Ward, Beaver and Eldridge and a note inside that read, “Happy Birthday from Ward, June and the boys.” He stayed in Berkeley, making pots and continuing to campaign for conservative issues. In the fall of 1987 he was arrested for possession of cocaine. He was again arrested in February 1988 for burglary in which he claims he was “moving furniture for homeless people.” He received three years probation for the offense. Eldridge Cleaver continued upon a vagrant life, accumulating bills and making ends barely meet from various speaking engagements. He remained vigilant towards the plight of the poor and equality for all people. He quit drugs after his last run-in for cocaine possession in 1994, in which he was almost fatally wounded. He became an advocate of a female president and environmental concerns. Eldridge Cleaver died result of a heart attack on May 1, 1998. He was 62.

Misled militant or malicious miasma? No one had been able to predict his true intentions or what he would say next, all that could be expected was that he was certain to entertain and shock the masses. Was he really serious? Did he truly become a Christian to reduce his sentence? Why in the fuck did he make those pants? We’ll never know. All we have are the facts juxtaposed next to Cleaver’s claims, and even these two factors are not enough evidence when trying to crack the case that is Eldridge Cleaver. I have heard many people my age refer to Cleaver as a sell-out. Maybe so. I'm not here to judge. I consider Eldridge to have been a human being like all of us; rife with convictions and contradictions that never seem to amalgamate perfectly. He just seemed to be more honest concerning his life-altering changes than most people. I will say that it is quite an easy feat for those of the Hip-Hop generation, a generation that has become an unmobilized mass of uneducated, hedonistic demagogues, to judge a civil rights leader that did more for the advancement of Black people in this country than an entire movement has done. Maybe Eldridge had a point. Could it be that he was correct in altering his views away from Black Nationalism towards a greater understanding and respect of all humans? American racism is a disease. We, as Black Americans, did not create this hatred, but we can fall victim to the same ignorance and pseudoscience that white Americans were infected with. I truly believe that hate breeds nothing but hate, but at the same time I know that white Americans are generally ignorant and unsympathetic towards the plights of impoverished American people. It is far easier to deal with injustices in Africa than it is to deal with the racial crisis that had never been properly addressed in this country. As we can all see from nooses popping up all over the nation, that it will be dealt with soon. We'll part our respective ways with Eldridge's thoughts on DuBois and Washington...

Eldridge, how is it different to be black today in 1997 than it was when you were in that basement in Oakland 30 years ago? We have the largest black middle class that we've ever had in history. 45% of all black children live at or beneath the poverty line. It's like we have the best of times and the worst of times. What's that all about?

CLEAVER: That's because our black middle class has followed an assimilationist ethic. They have become white and they've adopted all the worst features of America in terms of not caring about the other people. Like the white ruling class never cared about poor white people, let alone about black people and other minorities and these blacks who are following W.E.B. Du Bois' formula of educating that 10% who will then come back and lift up the rest of the people -- the argument that was had between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington was over how we're going to manage this thing.

Booker T. said we've got to teach these people how to work, then they'll get jobs, then they'll be able to afford education and then they can do that. And Du Bois said no, we've got to concentrate on the intellectual development of the people and get 10% of our people educated and then they can help the other people, but if you just learn a trade and you don't know what's going on, that ain't going nowhere.

I say both of them were right. We need both of what they promised and we've got both of what they promised. But they didn't have a unifying vision and consequently we've got an enlarged black bourgeoisie but they have departed from the basis of the black bourgeoisie according to E. Franklin Frazer. This was the professional classes and that was their economic base but the progress that has taken place has given a new economic base to the black bourgeoisie, to the expanded black -- now their economic base is political as well as up front economic and they still have a professional class but it is been expanded because you have a lot of black people with a whole lot of money coming from these other pursuits.

Add to that, the million-dollar salaries to football players, basketball players and baseball players, not that they're doing anything constructive with all of that money, but they have it. But they didn't bring it back to pull the other people up and so it's like the devil take the hindmost. That is what we're dealing with so that the black bourgeoisie is as corrupt and immoral as the white bourgeoisie and that is the problem.

THWAPP!!!

After bidding farewell to the boy Sammy D and his sister Kate on their voyage to Martha’s Vineyard, I went back to Harrison’s crib to let the corned hash and corned beef omelet from the Florida Avenue Grill get broke up by enzymes and to even later, quite possibly, take a shit. Chilling on the porno couch, chiefing and getting my Nintendo DS on took a toll on this Econoline, so I put the head back and fell out for a few. I got woken up by Harrison’s roommate and his crew, Wadeh the Devil’s Advocate, Jomo the Party Facilitator, Tion the Weatherman and his girlfriend, Diana the Asian Girl So Fine That You Really Don’t Wanna Look At Her Cause You Don’t Wanna Disrespect The Dude She’s With Who Just So Happens To Be Your Boy’s Boy. They had been at Wonderland fucking with the brunch and the bottomless Mimosas. Anyhow, bottles get to clanking, shots get to making, fools get to dranking. Fired up the grill and set up the Beer Pong table and commenced to playing some highly competitive matches. Sheena the Girl That Turns Girls Out came through while muthafuckas was on the topic of intersexual relations. Diana thought that to have sex with someone, you should be in love with that certain someone. Me and Wadeh thought her to be completely inane. We was both on some no relationship type shit; merely an understanding, a handshake and a swift reaming was all that was needed. Tion feigned sleep. Jomo suggested we play one last game of Beer Pong, but then he backed out and Sheena played my partner. Holding a ping-pong ball after a long unfinished Wimbledon-esque set with me and Sheena versus Tion and Diana with one cup apiece left I told the opposing team, “Listen. Nah, really. Listen. This was an incredible Beer Pong match. You guys are pros. This shit should’a been on ESPN2. No matter who wins this shit, I respect you two both as human beings and as Beer Pong players.” Then I sunk the shot. After that, we watched that new episode of Entourage when they made Medellín. I liked it. Not really sure what erryone else thought. Jomo, this time suggests we all head off to the House. For those that don’t know, the House is a strip club on Georgia Avenue NW. They used to call it the Penthouse, but due to recolonization, they had to give the strip club a more “family-friendly” euphemism. Now the children of the neighborhood have no idea what goes on in there. Now, strip clubs really ain’t my thing. I will however, go once in a very blue moon if that’s the mob mentality. Sheena says she’s never been to one. We says, “Sunday is the perfect night to go. It’ll be empty and low-keyed. Plus it’s late.” Sheena agrees and after Jomo throws up, we leave. Tion, Diana and Jomo walked there and me and Sheena drove in her car cause we got it like that.

Me and Sheena get to the House and it looks like a rap video with budget constraints. There’s only about 12 total people in the House. After I got frisked, they go through Sheena’s purse and we get ushered over to the bar. The House’s bar is below ground level; the bartender is right at fellatio height. While there’s no cover at the House, you do have to purchase a drink. I ask the bartender for two Sapphires and Tonic. Somebody’s momma who was playing the bartender told me they ain’t got no Bombay Sapphire. God damn it. Fuck it then, Tanqueray. We go and see the homies sitting by the stage up front. I ask Diana which one she likes the best and she points to the most fit girl of the lot. The House keeps some Clydesdales. I look at Sheena and she’s got a look on her face as if evil is looming and has its cross hairs on her virgin eyes. Jomo leans over and tells me, “You see AI over there with the Corona?” What? A-who? I turn around towards the seating area just in front of the stage, and lo-and-fucking-behold it’s Allen Iverson, fellow Georgetown attendee. I only know of a single AI At Georgetown story that my boy told me. Evidently, my boy is in an upper level literature class and it’s the day of the final. AI is sitting in the first seat near the wall, right by the door. All he has on his desk is a sharpened, yellow, wooden #2 pencil and a bluebook. That pencil better be pretty fucking sharp, AI. The professor hands out the final and people get into it. My boy can’t stop looking over to see what AI is doing. AI ain’t doing shit. Just chilling. My boy gets back to his final, not really being able to concentrate since he wants to know what Iverson is doing. He looks over again and AI’s got his head down on the desk, kindergarten-nap style, with that pencil point sharp as a Tokugawa dotanuki and that bluebook with a fresh-ass, uncreased spine like the King James text in a Buddhist’s crib. My boy says he has to fight laughing so he turns the opposite way in his desk so as not to get a glimpse of Iverson. After about a ten minute nap, AI, refreshed, gets up and leaves without the sharp #2 and the mint condition bluebook and he don’t come back.

AI is in the House with two of his homies. He looked more like a rapper than a basketball player. Oh yeah, that’s right. He is a rapper. All three of them have a fresh Corona with the lime perched on top the bottleneck in front of them. AI was chatting with the lady that seemed to be running the House. She goes off to do AI’s bidding as he reaches down into a mop bucket full of ones and grabs a wad of singles and flings them up on the stripper in front of him with the same face I used to have throwing salt on the driveway during the winter as a teenager. Then he does it again. The head of the House comes back with two more buckets full of what looks like straight from the mint singles. Three strippers are in front of AI’s crew popping pussy to such a degree, you would have thought that they thought, “If we stop popping this pussy, we die.” All the while the crew keep throwing bales of one’s at the ladies. I turn back to Sheena who really looks very disturbed. “You know that’s Allen Iverson, right?” “Who’s he?” “He used to go to Georgetown.” “Oh. Has he written anything I would have read?” “Write? He’s a basketball player. They can’t write, girl.” I look around the club and notice that back towards the mirror there are about five neat little mounds of ones all gathered up like leaves. I got up and tipped the stripper performing the farthest away from AI cause I felt bad for her. She wasn't within the ken of the flying singles. The girl was thick as hell and polite as only a stripper trying to get your money can be. She was like, “Thank you.” I’m like, “Nah. Thank you. You’re the talented one.” Two dollars will buy you an F-350 getting shook in your face for 97 seconds. I’d say that’s worth it. After I sat back down I decided to bully Sheena into tipping a stripper. Since she looked so uncomfortable I figured that it would do her good to fully immerse herself in the environment. After six minutes of coercion she finally apprehensively walked over and slinked a bill toward the girl that Diana thought was fit. She sat back down beside me and I ask her, “That wasn’t that bad was it?” She’s like, “It’s weird. I don’t think I’m this sort of person.” I smile at innocence destroyed and turn back to AI who is still flinging his McDuck stack to the strippers. There was one stripper butt-naked on her back with her thick-ass calves hoisted behind her shoulders, playing with her labia; all the while, steady popping that pussy. At that moment, AI’s boy, the one closest to me who looked like Slim Thug, sprung out of his seat and with his right hand bent down and scooped up a grip of singles like a shortstop with no time to make the play with the gloved hand. Then he pulls up and whips the wad hard as fuck, target dead-on, smack-dab, right at the stripper’s pussy. The bills hit the coochie with a loud-ass “THWAPP!!!” and dollars go flying everywhere like the safe got blown. Singles was confetti flipping in air and then landing on the stripper and the stage. You’da thought Bush just won a third term in office. Homegirl was still popping that pussy, but she quit massaging her labia so she could grab the bills before they hit the stage. AI and crew thought this to be the funniest shit since Martin and they all jump out their seats laughing loud as fuck. “Now that’s how you do ‘em!” yells AI’s boy while triple-dapping up AI. I look over at Sheena and implement my super power, that being my keen telepathic abilities…

(Now, what I had planned for this part was me implementing my "telepathic powers". While I don't actually have the benefits of telepathy (which could come in handy, especially with the ladies and gambling), I had planned to get a short 100-word response on the situation from Sheena herself and to put that in this very exact location. However, after 5 weeks of begging Sheena to write these one hundred words, it seems as if she's not going to do it. So, you guys, like me, will not know what Sheena thinks of strip clubs. Damn. The moral? Don't ask friends to do shit for you 'cause they won't do so in a timely fashion.)

Also, check this compilation of Allen Iverson's greatest career dunks. Whoever put this together did a magnificent job as this spans high school, college and the NBA. Get 'em Jewelz...

"I Carried a Metal Nunchuck In My Purse."

I often hear people on that "there's only four years left" sort of philosophy. Being a student of history I would have to say to folks that there has always been war, violence and inequality in the world. One needs only to read the bible to come to this conclusion. The main differences in the contemporary world are, 1) because there are more people on the planet than ever before, this results in more acts of violence, not necessarily an increase in the percentage of violent crimes per capita; and 2) the abundance of information that we are privy to nowadays. In times past there was just as much heinous activity going on, it's just that no one had television, so there was no way to broadcast such information to the masses in such an expedient fashion. The world is more complicated but we still strive for the same things as our ancestors. We all want relative success, a fine wife with an F-250 and a catcher's balance, and some bad-ass kids running around the estate so we can whoop their ass when they're out of line and make them get us a beer. The negative aspects of human nature, lust, desire and greed are not new phenomenon introduced to America by rappers. (like the stop snitching ethos, which was not invented by rappers either-this is a norm within organized criminal factions) The Four Horsemen have been around since the first caveman, not affiliated with Geico, smashed in the skull of a rival caveman and ganked his bitch. Yeah, we live in sick times, but when in history did anyone not live in what can be considered to be sick times? Many tout the good old days, but those days that were good and old for some may have meant hanging from a tree like some strange-ass fruit to me.

What I have noticed in greater frequency is the rise in violent crimes against women. According to feminist.com, 17.6% of all American women have either been raped or survived a rape attempt, and of those assaulted, 64% were attacked by someone that they knew. They say every 90 seconds someone is sexually assaulted in America. Over 500,000 women are stalked every year by punk muthafuckas with no game, mayne. I've got a little sister and a mother, so this shit is a little unnerving to me. Women, I believe, need to take up arms. I have no problem with an intelligent armed woman since I ain't no rapist and I don't beat women anymore. I'll let my homegirl from the bay, Sara, tell it since she is far more passionate about this than me. Plus, Sara's got the unique ability to be very frank and factual about this horrible topic, yet she manages to make me laugh at some shit that I shouldn't be laughing at...

"I AM SO FUCKING FED UP WITH THIS SHIT!!! I THINK THAT ALL FEMALE SHOULD AT LEAST CARRY A MASE WITH THEM. PLEASE PROTECT YOURSELF! FUCK THEM UP FIRST!!!!!!

WHEN I USED TO WORK IN A GHETTO ASS AREA IN CLEVELAND, I CARRIED A METAL NUNCHUCK IN MY PURSE. I ALSO CARRIED MASE WITH MY KEY CHAIN AND A KNIFE IN MY CAR AFTER BEING STALKED BY A CONVICTED SEXUAL PREDICTOR.

AND GUYS....PLEASE GET YOUR LOVE ONES SOME MASE OR WEAPONS. IT IS IMPORTANT!!! I AM JUST FUCKING SICK OF SEEING WOMEN GETTING ABDUCTED AND KILLED BY SICK MUTHAFUCKAS!!!"

And... if that doesn't sway you, let Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (whose movie is phenomenal) punk your ass into leaving the ladies be...

Pimpin' Ain't Easy... Part 2...

As you can see, man don't need no ice with that drink... Tony Thizzz for all those unacquainted. You may want to read the previous post first as you will appreciate this one better having some schema base on the man, but it's kinda like the X-Files; you don't have to be privy to each episode to enjoy the story, but it does make for a more rewarding and entertaining experience...

Saturday. March 10, 2007...

I arrived at SFO at like 8:30pm. The flight from Hawaii was cool goings. I ain't want to leave; being in the sun, cold-cooling on the beach, checking out all the young tenders and staying away from Waikiki was the shit. But I was in need of that urban blight again. City mouse main mayne, y'heard?. My one night in San Francisco should satisfy said want for congestion, pollution, gentrification and the looming threat of violence. I took a cab from SFO to the San Franciscan Hotel over on Mason, between Ellis and Eddy. While in the cab, I decided to hit up my homies that I met last week, Moe and Tony. Moe picks up and is like, "What's up Chad?" "Shit. What'chall getting into tonight?" "We're at the mall now. We was 'bout to go home, but we'll come out. I know a couple of parties tonight." "Word. I'm down." "Yeah, they should be tight. You can come as you are. It ain't no dress code." "Fucking great. I ain't feel like ironing again. All that dressing up ain't really my shit like that." "Where you at?" "The San Franciscan on Mason. Right downtown." "Cool. We'll be there in like 45 minutes." Lovely. Just enough time to check in and take a quick shower in a communal shower that had an abnormal amount of pubic hair in it. Plastic bags on your feet when necessary, seen? The timing is perfect and I meet the homies outside about 9:45pm.

The night in the Bay is beautiful. Flawless nighttime temperature. Everybody's rocking t-shirts and hoodies, and you barely need the hoodie. From where we're at, it's only a five minute walk to the first destination, Club 6ix. I was fairly intent on getting on getting a half-pint to fill up my leather bound Polo flask, but Tony and Moe said I should chill cause since the area right around Market where the club was located had a proclivity for randomness on the bout it tip, we were sure to get frisked. So I told the dude on my left shoulder to chill out and we'll get a bottle later. Club 6ix had no line, the bouncer was cool and as I did get frisked, they didn't fuck with my rear pocket, so I could have brought in that good Henny. No matter. We get in the joint and there's a pretty ass Asian girl selling CDs at a fold-up table. I ask her whose CD it is and she tells me it's this lady named Melina Jones. "Who's she?" "She's from the Bay. You'll like it. She's a lyricist." "She's Asian?" "Uuh no. She's of mixed race." "That really don't really matter, I was just curious. I'll buy it." Moe told me he knew the dude that made the beats, Deedot. Sometimes you've just gotta support underground Hip-Hop. It paid off cause the shit is tight. Anyhow, we hit up the bar and got two shots of Henn for me and Tony, a Bombay & tonic for Moe and an additional Heineken for me. Double-fisting like four lesbians. The bartender forgot my Heineken, but when I reminded dude he just gave it to me for free. We all agreed that that's a good bartender so I tipped the man some more. We was just maxing, conversing on the week. Me asking them what they had been up to, which was the daily chiffarobe-bussing, and them asking me about Oahu since I had just been enjoying vacation. I relayed all the stories of how I tried to avoid Waikiki; the lack of record stores; the gorgeous natives; the Japanese who treat the island as their version of America's 1920s Cuba; the flawless beaches with water as blue as Heavy D's funk; the bitter-ass but delicious poi; the Jawaiian music, which I coined Hamaican; the nightspot called Mai Tai's where you can see some locals and get away from the Haoles; the best Pho soup I ever ate down in Chinatown; aloha shirts on bankers during their smoke break outside; my tan; my new moniker of King Kamehaplaya and my bastardization of their salutation, "Alo-ha-ha". I hate to brag about a vacation, but you just can't help but speak on it. It's not with the intent on being a prick. Hopefully you can inspire folks to do the same thing. Traveling is life at its best. We was having a good time chatting, but the club was on snore mode. As much as I wanted to see Melina Jones, we had to bone out cause it wasn't enough tenders in la casa... Vaminos amigos...

We walk back to the car and on the way I get that half-pint I initially wanted from a corner store. I carefully filled my flask without the use of a funnel and didn't spill much at all. We hop in the ride and head over to 111 Minna and down the flask right before we go in. Now this was my type of hype. The spot was poppin' and you could tell from the all the folks outside on smoke break. We enter on the side where we meet the sentry, who is a banging-ass ambigously-raced fine-ass thanger. She smiles, I smile bigger, she gets a ten-spot from the three of us and gives us all a mix CD. Another thing I love about the Bay. A lot of these nightlife places actually give some some sort of media at their outings, therefore it gives one something tangible to take home; something you don't get much at the club unless your game is consistently trump-tight. 111 Minna is a hybrid bar, nightclub and art gallery and it's pretty fucking big too. The featured artist was a dude named Onesto. Quite the prolific artist, dude had what seemed like 150 paintings up. They even let him do the mural on the stage, which he decked out. On the other side were some photographs, most pretty good, of women looking sexy as shit. It had two very large rooms with a few couches and booths in both, while two different DJs rocked their respective room. There were two bars, both with only two bartenders. They needed about four bartenders per bar to efficiently serve all the impatiently waiting drunkards. Good thing we downed that flask before we stepped in. The music was banging too. Not too often do we on the East Coast get to hear Furly in the club atmosphere. Both DJs were good, but they kept letting these underground rappers rap, and you know how wack rappers fuck up the vibe at the club. All in all though, 111 Minna is exactly what I'm looking for when I hit the town.

We get a few drinks and get to bird-watching. There were some gorgeous women in the house. San Fran is so cosmopolitan, so you get all the flavors. For a carnivore like myself, this is a good thing. We get on the subject of approaching women in the Bay. Tony holds firm to the opinion of a muthafuckin' pimp. You've gotta bring it, and bring it hella raw. Get at the bitches. Let 'em soak up some pimp game. Moe points his thumb at Tony and is like, "Yeah, but he's hella raunchy with the hoes. He says some wild shit." I'm like, "Yeah man, I don't be going mad hard on the bitches like that." Tony's like, "Sheeeet." We get to roaming around, surveying the crowd doing reconnaissance, and it's off the hook. The Bay got 'em. Young tenders omnipresent. I'm getting called "adorable" by fine ladies; main mayne, I'm feeling myself. The Henny keeps coming since it's my last night, I'm balling out and muthafuckas is getting drunk. Whilst on the third round Tony leans over to me and says, "Hey. You see that one broad over there?" "On the left?" "Yeah. The light-skinned one. You should go over and talk to her. She's fascinated with you." "For real?" To which I get the assured frown and the head nod of certainty. I look over, the girl's cute enough. Fuck it. Gangster stroll to the middle. I pass both her girls who, like her, are posted up against a table. No dancing 'round these parts, no drinks either. I give a "How y'all doing?" to her friends and they look as if they were doing me a favor by hearing it. The girl on the end of this triumvirate was the one "fascinated" with me, so I slide up next to her and give my 4th grade smile and ask how she's doing. "I'm OK. How are you?" "I'm pretty good. Why are you posted up and not on the dancefloor giggin'?" "I don't really like this music that they're playing." "What girl? You don't fucks with the hyphy shit? No Mac Dre? No Federation?" "No. I don't like that stuff." "Hmmm... you from the East Coast?" "Yeah. New York." "Yeah? What part? Brooklyn?" "No. I'm from the Bronx." "I see. So what brings you out West?" "Basically my job." "You don't sound too enthusiastic about it." "No. I really don't like it." "Damn, that's too bad. This really is a top-notch city and it's better than New York..." "Whatever." "We'll save that argument for another time." After that I took a sip of Newcastle. I suppose she was tired of all of my questioning, so she starts her own. "So where are you from?" "I'm from Cleveland, but I've been in DC for like, 9 years." "What part?" "You know DC?" "What part?" "16th. Not too far from Adams-Morgan. What? You went to Howard?" "Yeah I did. What brings you out here?" "Spring break babygirl. I just got back from Hawaii. You see that tan? (I touch my own arm) Nice, right?" She smiles and there I noticed a few things... Firstly, the girl had way too much teeth. This is never the worst thing though, 'cause at least her teeth were white and her gums really pink and healthy, but it's something that I can't really get over. Something equestrian about the whole thing. Secondly, I remembered that I am currently batting 0.00 when up against New York City broads. They smoke me every time. Maybe it's my reserved charm and polite manner that they're not privy to, maybe I just sound too country, who knows? And really, at this point in this dead-end conversation, I thought to myself, "Who cares?" As I was winding this one up and preparing my polite departure, I noticed the last thing that I was to notice during this exchange... Tony Thizzz was making his way over to my area. Tony slides over with a judgmental glance that scanned each of the wallflowers like a samurai sizing up a posse of ninja before their inevitable deaths. He stops by the two that I passed to get to the teethy girl. He looks the first from head to toe while his hands move in a diabolical motion, as if he were evil and applying lotion. "So... why aren't you ladies dancing?" The girl closest to him looks at him like, "Who in the fuck is this Asian muthafucka?" and says, "We don't like the music." Tony looks like he just just smelled some piss and says, "What?!?! You don't like the music? That's straight Bay shit man." The girl that answered looks at him equally unimpressed. Tony then moves his gaze down the line to the next wallflower, the girl standing next to the teethy girl I was conversing with. After scanning her, he then says rather nonchalantly, "So... why aren't you ladies drinking?" The wallflower in the middle looks really perturbed and through pouted lips tells Tony that "We don't drink." Tony guffaws a single "Ha!" and slaps his hands together like he is going to lay hands on someone, smiles and says, "Yeah, right. These bitches are broke. C'mon Chad, let's go find some real women." Without letting the shock change my expression I immediately, but slowly, crept the fuck away from those girls before anyone of them could look me in my face.

The evening continues as it should. More Hennessey, actually, probably way too much. At some point some dude let me hit his bowl in the club, so I bought him a beer, which proved to be a mistake since that made me a new best friend in the form of a greasy white dude in all Oakland A's garb constantly telling me about all the bitches he's about to pull while all up close in my grill like a European when they're conversing, and the muthafucka had the dragon. Whatever. By this point I'm drunk as fuck and have lost all notion of any spacial or temporal awareness. Basically I'm in my own moment, shit just starts to happen and I just start to notice. At one point after we had just had another Henny shot, I see Tony looking off into the distance. Following his gaze I see him looking at another light-skinnedidid thanger. This one was better looking than the other girl by far, similar look, but everything was just right and no extra teeth. I'm looking at Tony as his Thizz Face reveals his true thoughts. He's obviously about to bust that alpha male move. "Yeah. You see that one over there?" I look over and say "Yeah, the light-skinned girl, right?" "Yeah. She's utterly fascinated with me." Moe looks at Tony with a smile of familiarity and reinforces his courage by telling him to make that move." She cuts a stare over our way again and Tony notices. "Oh yeah. She's completely fascinated by me. I'll be right back fellas." Tony walks over to the young lady and Moe moves over by me in the spot where Tony was. As we're both sipping on beers, Moe says, "Watch this shit. I'm telling you he's hella raunchy." Tony goes over to this lady, who I might add, does not look neither like bitch nor punk, and he had me curious as to what his approach was about to be. What the young brother did was talk directly in her ear. I don't believe that he ever spoke her directly to her face. So as Tony is talking into this girl's ear, she is looking directly in our direction, so what we have here is a perpendicular conversation of sorts where the dissimenator of data is Tony only, leaving this girl no choice but to listen. As he's speaking her face looks like most women when they're hearing the amorphous game; the words may be different, but the aim is the same. We see her giving a lot of one-word answers, "Yeah." "Sure." "Right." coupled with dubious looks into the distance. All of the sudden, maybe 28 seconds after Tony begins this pimp move, the girl turns to him furiously and yells something to the tune of, "You stupid muthafucka! Don't be comin' around with that bullshit. Do you know who the fuck I am? I'll get you fucked up!" Tony turns slowly and comes back over me and Moe's way with a "bitch please" look on his face, but considering her reaction, he seems, if anything, only mildly annoyed that his game ain't drop. The broad was so mad that I honestly thought she was going to hit Tony in the back of the head with that big-ass purse she was carrying. Moe looks at me and says, "I told you." Tony's back over by us at this time and is standing looking toward the girl he just gamed and she's still throwing epithets his way, only now her volume has been lessened but her face is still contorted with disgust. I can't stand suspense, so I immediately ask Tony, "Yo... what did you say to that broad?" Tony frowns ever so slightly and still looking at the girl in question, says, "I told that bitch I could make her a lot of money." I look at Moe with those eyes you make when you see your first titties and I just lose it. We all start laughing hysterically. Shit, I was crying. Literally. In the distance I saw the girl begin to get agitated even more...

That story is over, but my rhyme ain't done. More laps around the club, a few more dances with girls that either wouldn't get nasty enough or dances with girls that were just plain nasty, more Henny and more game gets spat. Tony ends up talking to some big jont and her fine-ass Russian friend that was giving the signs of fascination, but not buying the shit I was selling. I believe Tony was able to get the big bout-it jont's number anyhow. It was my last night in town, so I really wasn't expecting anything to go down, but Tony told me that I was playing myself short. "There's still plenty of time to get one of these bitches." That was true. On what had to have been our ninth shot of Henny and my ninth Newcastle, we met this Asian broad in the picture to the left. Not that she was particularly fine, but she was particularly fascinated with our crew. Moe was dropping the smooth game on her, I got her a shot and Tony got the girl to start moving. She was oscillating between the boy