the big NO
I'm down here in the durty durty south chilling with my long lost friends from the New Orleans, Tulane university architecture fifth year students ... its really funny that i got befriended by a crew of architecture students especially since i have little or no redeeming artistic talent and am totally lost in their world of structures, tetonics, spatial relations, negative space, interior and exterior relations and all that jazz, but its cool they are really wonderful people but being down here makes me feel like i don't belong anywhere ... @ fordham i'm the kid NOT at fordham, here i'm the non-architecture kid, on my block i'm that hard working good boy kid who's never around the block anymore, at 1020 i'm denzil's side kick who also doesn't really belong or know anyone, at work i was the bilingual kid, and at my new job i'm the young kid with no degrees that somehow go a hot new job, its annoying because i don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing that i don't fit in anywhere and that at somepoint in any conversation its going to take a turn to something that i can't participate in ... and this happens everywhere all the time and i really wish sometimes i could do that to my friends so they would understand how i feel ...
then there is my feeling of everything i missed out by fucking up my freshman year at tulane, it was one of the most grueling years academically, socially, economically, emotionally for me and it really fucked up my school situation my money situation and my social skills situation. maybe coming back to tulane would have been the right thing to do, i would have learned about a different place, a different culture i would have had the "typical" college experience i would have made international connections and had a school that was MINE a group of friends that were MINE
*sigh* New Orleans is BURSTING with greenry BURSTING i mean the sidewalks are cracked and shifted because there are hundred year old trees lined up and down the street whose roots lift and pull and expand ... there is a bright lucious green canopy everywhere, we've taken every opportunity to eat outside, breakfast, lunch dinner snacks outside, t-shirt and that's it, hanging outside watching the SLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOWWWW pace of everything, waiting a solid 20 - 25 minutes for food to come out but NOT gettting mad but savoring it ... today i think we are going to the chinese/soul food chicken shack, its a down and durty soul food place that also has chinese food in it at dirty cheap prices... its ran by a black family down here and that is the funniest part because in NYC its like all the chinese food fusion joints are run by chinese people, tex-mex places are run by chinese people, spanish-chinese food places are run by chinese people, etc... but for black people to run and master chinese food... never seen that done... BANANAS ....
what i don't like about being here is that new orleans is one of the most segregated racist inequality laden cities i have ever seen in my life ...driving to Tulane campus from the airport the airport shuttle driver took a little detour because there was an accident on the interstate, and we drove by what would be called the projects but they don't look anything like NYC projects ... run down brick-oven looking bulidngs with broken steps, broken windows, no sidewalks ... just ghetto shit and of course only populated by black people, and if i may quote Richard Pryor its not that light skinned black, its that orignial africa BLUE-BLACK black ... i think people might think it is wierd but i wanted to cry
One time my freshman year here at Tulane i was stressin' cuz i hated school so i borrowed my friend's bike and got on one of the tangent streets at the back end of campus and biked to downtown New Orleans. As i went through that main road it got to be a more lower income nieghborhood and lower and lower till i was in the hood but then as i got closer to downtown i noticed that acouple of highways create a border between the hood and downtown. to cross to the downtown area there was a shitty as walkway that was 100% cement with no hand rails missing steps that was narrow barely enough room for one person to walk across ... i remember thinking this is architectural racism, this is a slap in the face, this is crazy! its an actual physical representation of WE DON'T WANT YOUR KIND CROSSING OVER! WE ONLY WANT YOUR LABOR NOT YOUR PARTICIPATION ... sooo sad... and of course i got funny looks being the only non-black person for miles (i never felt so white EVER) and i thought that i should be scared right? But i encountered only kindness i asked some kids which way to the overpass and a big huge man let me cross infront of him when i was carrying the bike over the walkway...
sweet bananas ... and now i'm at tulane a beautiful campus that is super hooked up ... its such a shock you would never think these two worlds exist 2 miles apart but they do.... its confusing
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh so yesterday durning brunch we went to a hipster cool resturant where some young repoublicans were dining and they stared at our crew for the whole time, from the time we were approaching the place till we sat down they STARED ... like we were crazy or ugly or aliens ... i think they were disturbed by the diversity of our crew and how unorthodox we were, a bosnian, a korean, a colombian, a costa rican, a kid from illinois, a chick mississippi, a chinese girl all chilling and laughing and being doofy. i don't know it was unnerving to be so under survillence but it was cool that eventually we sat toooo close to them that they ended up leaving HHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
BEST thing last nite we went this club called 360 the hiphop club in NOLA that is on the top rotating floor of one of the tallest buildings here (30 stories) ... and as were coming in who comes out ??? MANNY FRESH from the BIG TYMERS and i think BABY was with him ........ OMG they are five feet tall and funny looking but its crazy that we saw then ... i dunno what kind of madness will happen ...
i will write a little later about the 3am discussions about the demeaningness of blowjobs, communication, the imporatance of language and the ultimate expressions of love and some more deep shit !!!!!!!!!!!
peace
then there is my feeling of everything i missed out by fucking up my freshman year at tulane, it was one of the most grueling years academically, socially, economically, emotionally for me and it really fucked up my school situation my money situation and my social skills situation. maybe coming back to tulane would have been the right thing to do, i would have learned about a different place, a different culture i would have had the "typical" college experience i would have made international connections and had a school that was MINE a group of friends that were MINE
*sigh* New Orleans is BURSTING with greenry BURSTING i mean the sidewalks are cracked and shifted because there are hundred year old trees lined up and down the street whose roots lift and pull and expand ... there is a bright lucious green canopy everywhere, we've taken every opportunity to eat outside, breakfast, lunch dinner snacks outside, t-shirt and that's it, hanging outside watching the SLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOWWWW pace of everything, waiting a solid 20 - 25 minutes for food to come out but NOT gettting mad but savoring it ... today i think we are going to the chinese/soul food chicken shack, its a down and durty soul food place that also has chinese food in it at dirty cheap prices... its ran by a black family down here and that is the funniest part because in NYC its like all the chinese food fusion joints are run by chinese people, tex-mex places are run by chinese people, spanish-chinese food places are run by chinese people, etc... but for black people to run and master chinese food... never seen that done... BANANAS ....
what i don't like about being here is that new orleans is one of the most segregated racist inequality laden cities i have ever seen in my life ...driving to Tulane campus from the airport the airport shuttle driver took a little detour because there was an accident on the interstate, and we drove by what would be called the projects but they don't look anything like NYC projects ... run down brick-oven looking bulidngs with broken steps, broken windows, no sidewalks ... just ghetto shit and of course only populated by black people, and if i may quote Richard Pryor its not that light skinned black, its that orignial africa BLUE-BLACK black ... i think people might think it is wierd but i wanted to cry
One time my freshman year here at Tulane i was stressin' cuz i hated school so i borrowed my friend's bike and got on one of the tangent streets at the back end of campus and biked to downtown New Orleans. As i went through that main road it got to be a more lower income nieghborhood and lower and lower till i was in the hood but then as i got closer to downtown i noticed that acouple of highways create a border between the hood and downtown. to cross to the downtown area there was a shitty as walkway that was 100% cement with no hand rails missing steps that was narrow barely enough room for one person to walk across ... i remember thinking this is architectural racism, this is a slap in the face, this is crazy! its an actual physical representation of WE DON'T WANT YOUR KIND CROSSING OVER! WE ONLY WANT YOUR LABOR NOT YOUR PARTICIPATION ... sooo sad... and of course i got funny looks being the only non-black person for miles (i never felt so white EVER) and i thought that i should be scared right? But i encountered only kindness i asked some kids which way to the overpass and a big huge man let me cross infront of him when i was carrying the bike over the walkway...
sweet bananas ... and now i'm at tulane a beautiful campus that is super hooked up ... its such a shock you would never think these two worlds exist 2 miles apart but they do.... its confusing
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh so yesterday durning brunch we went to a hipster cool resturant where some young repoublicans were dining and they stared at our crew for the whole time, from the time we were approaching the place till we sat down they STARED ... like we were crazy or ugly or aliens ... i think they were disturbed by the diversity of our crew and how unorthodox we were, a bosnian, a korean, a colombian, a costa rican, a kid from illinois, a chick mississippi, a chinese girl all chilling and laughing and being doofy. i don't know it was unnerving to be so under survillence but it was cool that eventually we sat toooo close to them that they ended up leaving HHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
BEST thing last nite we went this club called 360 the hiphop club in NOLA that is on the top rotating floor of one of the tallest buildings here (30 stories) ... and as were coming in who comes out ??? MANNY FRESH from the BIG TYMERS and i think BABY was with him ........ OMG they are five feet tall and funny looking but its crazy that we saw then ... i dunno what kind of madness will happen ...
i will write a little later about the 3am discussions about the demeaningness of blowjobs, communication, the imporatance of language and the ultimate expressions of love and some more deep shit !!!!!!!!!!!
peace