ya'll are killing the game right now.

and these pics, stories, poems, tats, outfits, videos, memories are KILLING ME SOFTLY.

at least we finally have some sun........

i'm just playin, but i'm sayin...

sometimes good Jesus just drops a gem in your life at any given time and you just have to accept it with open arms. it cld be on your way to work. in your car going to the beach. on the train going shopping. or in the pizza shop after you've left a club full of shambles and all you tryna do is just fill your belly and be on your merry way. yeh--at any give time.

the following is what happens when you sit in a pizza shop window in righteous babygirl attire and expect (the audacity of expectation!) to not be harrassed by a puerto rican, fine as hell, just needs a bath and a haircut and you'd give him the number, possible heroine addict homeless man.

and when you try to communicate with him through soundproof? plexiglass.

true story. (this is a video, y'all. there's been some confusion. you must, by all means, PRESS PLAY.)



never boricua wit' a 'k' tho...

thanks to 'kinha for the footage.

if you look closely...

you'll see bleezy's name tatted on my back.

i love this mop

i do not, however, love the absence of her gorg' wedding ring.
nas--get it together.

in a NY minute

clearing, thomas demand, 2003. (on display at the modern @ moma, nyc)


rick owens, 250 hudson st., new york, ny.

just returned from new york city monday morning.
took the 605am suicide train to make it to work at 1030.
i just can't ever bear to make myself leave on sunday.
to tear myself away early from a 3-hr brunch. or miss sunday dinner.
it hurts too much.
i'm sick of just returning from. of just leaving new york city.

exhausted, exhilarated, depressed.

there's something about being there that just feels so much more right to me than here. more like home in a way. in a way it does to only about 8 million residents and at least 8 million more wannabes.

my beloved longtime new yorker superstar aunt put it well when she said that new york "fills you up" in a way other cities just don't.

and at his farewell/bday party at bungalow 8, rufus albemarle gave it a shot: "what i'll miss most is just the new york-iness. you know? that thing that you can't define."

maybe it was just the whirlwind itinerary that did it to me, but i think it's time to move there...

...haute cocktails at the pegu club with some dearest of friends; tokio 7 for vintage missoni with mervs; cheap champagne and luxboutique hotel hopping; westside hwy for lounging with leslie; high fashion galleries and a stolen-but-muuch-deserved beer with wifey; long island city for a quick stoop j on an empty street with toren; some bomb ass falafel in the village; a celebutante bday soiree at bella's; an ethereal brunch at the modern followed by a wild cab ride allll the way downtown for a view of the falls (i liked!); 'vieve and her pug in soho; and some hilarious bonding with familyfriends...

so i think it's time to move there.

(to be continued...)

oh this is straight mud on your name.

pers: you do whatever the hell you wanna do and make sure I don't know a damn about it

sorry ass nigga: oh trust me im gonna do whatever i wanna do..

pers: That's the only thing you can be trusted to do... be a sorry ass nigga. you do that better than you play basketball.

sorry ass nigga: so leave this sorry ass nigga alone then...fucc outta here

sorry ass nigga: dont ever try to play me...its nuffin though..forget about me completely and im dead ass serious

he dead ass serious ya'll.
*rolls eyes*

built up RAGE

i've been sitting on this for a while so bear with me. smack in the middle of part 1 of cnn's black in america series: the black woman and family, i got really riled up. i cursed the tv, smacked my orange juice over as i reached for my yellow pages to find the name of the bitch that opened her mouth to say the unthinkable. ok. so give me a second..now, for just about my whole life i've lived in someone's uptown. washington heights. inwood. thebronx. you name it. save for harlem, the only uptown hood im missing, im a fabric of high numbers. the 180's, 190's and 200's of the city. with that said, in my time uptown i'd say i've learned a bit about adaptability. adapting to traveling extra far to meet my downtown buds. adapting to being off the map for suckers who think uptown starts and ends at 96th street. and adapting to gentrified changes to a neighborhood that once nursed me. these things noted however, something ive never taken for granted was the accessibility of practically everything - from a pack of screws to an oven roasted chicken - at almost any time of day within a 5 block radius of every place i've called home.

i felt privileged.

enter simple bitch from harlem. "i can't find a tomato anywhere here. i have to take a half hour bus ride to 110th and broadway just to get a fresh tomato" i hated her guts. maybe its because she started her speech by complaining, or even because i knew her interview only served as support for cnn's very specific agenda. so now, anyone who knows anything knows there is a fairway -one of the freshest markets i've ever visited - in the heart of harlem, 125th street. bold sign. ample parking space. and mad tomatoes. now if this woman couldn't get lucky at the 5 bodegas in her immediate surroundings (bodegas are like mastercard in the hood. everywhere you want to be) then she damn sure could have hauled her self to 125th street and 9th avenue where a fresh tomato would have blinded her if she walked up any closer to it.

in any case, i can't figure out why this made me so incredibly upset that i haven't stopped telling her story or mapping out my bodega geography in the hood, but i do know that if i ever ran up on that woman in the streets i'd chuck a tomato at her face and make some salsa with it. but before that, i'd tell her about how i bought it really close to her house.

righteousness

just LOOK at this babygirl! straight killin' em in arles, france.

(wifey, i feel like this bg is def a kindred spirit of our new best friend in soho)

good at being bad

have a look at the worst of the worst in magazine sales.
sorry, o. my mom has every issue though. for real though.

this bitch swear she cute.

dark skin. side parts. urban outfitter shades. nameplate necklaces.

diplo sure nose how to reel 'em in on a church sunday

breath of fresh air

ohhhh, joy. fighting AIDS in calvin klein collection.

on the 6 train

as an ugly man screamed "shut the fuck UP!" during a homeless person's delightful poetic performance, i fixed my gaze on some poster paper behind the mess. it featured stef alicia's heart. k.west.

in all his white teeth and clear complexion this man's ad for absolut? threw me for a loop. i couldn't tell if he was for real. he could have been selling his soul just as easily as a pack of doublemint or a proactiv set.

see if you follow:


::get a fucking JOB!!!::
::nobody wants to hear that shit!!!::

someone find me a new route to my midtown office on the EAST side, stat. this one ain't workin' out.

firenze.

dont kill me, bgs. it's just that i've been traaavelin'... i swurr.

meet my tour guides: foto opp
it was this or the "fuck americans" piece i found near the duomo.

mexican. fuck pasta.

my hair does this too

Slickadelaphanté....

boogie: wait
boogie: what?!

boogie: when was this filmed?

pers: oh bitch

pers: #8

pers: on 106 & park

boogie: hhahahahhah

miami-dade public schools, we salute you.

we just think we better.

it's been too long. way too long. they rap to you, but they sing to me. look out for "million dollar corner," "show you how to hustle," and "STILL GOT IT FOR CHEAP."

you catchy mothafucka.

someone kill me for liking this.

bitches!

on the July issue of Italian VOGUE:

"I've been watching the news-stands since the beginning. There are lines of women when they hear of a new shipment," says Kenya Hunt, the young black style editor of Metro International News in New York. "The news-stand guys are hustling, locking it up in the back and charging $25, $28, when the real price is $16. Yesterday, I saw it on eBay for $50. There is a climate shift. This is the year of the presidential election. And this at a time when magazine sales are really hurting." (de livesteez)

i'll be gotdamned.

what would Jesus do?

Chamelio Salamander.

you ARE a comet.
i am ready to go. RIGHT. NOW.

do you know what brings rats, mice, snakes, up out they hole?

bang it loudly.

bring yo' umbrellas, 'cause young fella it gets no weirder.

as my hair gets shorter and shorter

this babygirl reminds me to keep cutting shit out and off.

at what point??

our treen been and kenyon martin. is this shit on point or a disaster?

doing too much.

me: im in the club with 200%
me: guess how much he's doing
persephone: oh bitch
persephone: i say at LEAST 210

i just wish i had a picture for this nigga. it'd explain everything.

CoSTUME NATIONAL gave us life

shit was like a museum. so black, so peaceful, such fine lines. genius architectural layout.
108 wooster. do it.

she roll dolo from state to state

...continent in this case. andrea's in china writin' shit like this. she even eats from abroad.

black girls are usually averse to sweat...

HOWEVER

summer stage in central park last sunday, 95 degrees, no shade, $5 water bottles, perspiring armpits, sweated-out perms, naked babies, asian queens, shimmy shimmy yaw shimmy yeh shimmy yih, delicious black men, tattoos, blunts, and santogold was all we needed.

talk abt heaven in hell.

next week's show:


















any more questions?

$19.99 later...

somehow it didn't occur to me that italian vogue would actually be...in italian.

tell 'em when i used to mess wit' gentlemen

...straight up apostles.

the thing about it all is that God doesn't really care abt your plan. what you had in mind doesnt matter, never really mattered, and won't ever matter. and in constant need of control, this wld normally scare the shit out of me. drive me crazy. piss me the fuck off. but aint shit normal abt this. so i kick pedicured toes up, blow smoke through my nose, and let the bitch ride out....

"Let me tell you abt love. That silly word you believe is abt whether you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so doing it for your own good.

Love is none of that. There is nothing in nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God.

You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn—by practice and careful contemplation—the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God—carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it.

How do you know you have graduated? You don't. What you do know is that you are human and therefore educable, and therefore capable of learning how to learn, and therefore interesting to God, who is interested only in Himself which is to say He is interested only love. Do you understand me? God is not interested in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who understand and share that interest." (TM, Paradise)

it is startling. it is unsettling. it is life.

i'll be lovin' her long time

apologies for the bunk ass quality, but this the jam of my weekend! you can find wifey and i stuntin' down west broad to the tune of this summer banger. no photos, please.

(mimi 4eva!)

tang multivitamin available without prescription!

He doesn't understand.
He's a smart man, but- he doesn't understand
doesn't understand, can't comprehend
Why I want him to be my man.
How do I convince him that he can?
That he's capable, more than able-
to satisy what I desire.
He's a man with vision
but can't see the scars across my chest,
where a rapist grabbed my breasts
where I let men rest
who could care less
about. me.
he's a brilliant man, but he can't understand
how ignoring my calls
makes me feel small
like less than,
not equal to,
not me and you-
he's a diligent man,
but he never researched me
never looked me up beyond the maybelline
I may be lean, but my heart. is. heavy.
I am the definition of forgotten
he remembers my bed, remembers my head
but it slips his mind to see if I'm okay
He doesn't see how taking me out once a week
makes me feel disposable
late nights he recycles me
uses me over and over to reach his peak
and gets so high
he can't see the mountain on his shoulders breaking me
his friends know everything about him
--but they don't know me
which leads me to believe
that he doesn't think I am about him.
around him can't surround him.
with anything. but. my. body.
and he's an intelligent man
but he can't read my biography
he doesn't know I have a history
of dealing with men who only appreciate me
after. 3 am.
I have a father and I am ashamed
to tell him that his daughter
has let a man depress her.
neglect her.
forget. her.
not remember to respect her.
i am just a useful tool.
a screwdriver.
your screw drives her-- to make better mistakes.
He's a smart man
but he refuses to see
how his behavior reflects she--
his daughter,
the girl who calls him father.
he's a wise man
but too shallow to see
how deep his behavior reaches.
one day a man will leave her beaten. cheated.
treated like meat and-
he'll disconnect the pieces
of our broken hearts
he won't see it. won't see him.
himself in the selfish bastard
who broke his baby's heart.
i don't know where it ends,
but I know where it starts
my dad broke my heart years before it beat
and her dad would break mine before she'd ever speak.
and she's a smart girl but,
when it comes to he- she doesn't think
doesn't weep, doesn't see...
how she repeats
like a scratched cd
before giving up and skipping to the next song...

And how many tracks will I leave behind

Before someone worth finds me

And stops. Pressing. Play.

Ejects the mistakes my father made

Fasts forward to what will be his daughter's pain

If only those visits to the gym

Made you strong enough to eradicate

The behaviors that made you this way.

And after all this time I don't see results

Don't have a membership

I just remember shit

Like the many times and the many things

You put before getting to know me

Not the bottom half,

But the whole me,

How everclear reality is now,

It still stings going down

And it's a hard pill to swallow,

But I'm a tough act to follow

And I almost dare you to find

A woman whose heart is as big as mine

Who is as willing to take the time

To deal with your emotional unavailability

You think I want to be before anything

I just don't want to be after everything

Why can't we just be together

My mama used to say

If you're too ashamed to introduce him to me

He's not fit to be a part of your life

And I wish she wasn't right

But when she asks about you, I lie,

I try, to deny that just like her I lie

Night after night in denial

Telling myself in time

Daddy will come home

And just like me

She wonders why

Every man in her life seems to be a failure,

To fail her,

To nail her to a cross roads

Somewhere in between love and giving up

Between giving her all and not giving a fuck

And I'm my father's daughter

So if there is one thing I can understand,

I can understand, I do comprehend

That if he can't hear me scream,

Then maybe it's time to whisper

To ordain that the pain that encompasses me

Will miss her

My daughter

Who WILL have a loving father whose past won't come back to haunt her

Who WILL be nothing like her mother,

Who WILL be far stronger

I won't worry about her...

She will be ok.......

I know cause my mother ordained the same.

when midol ain't enough...

Love Is You

i'd hit

how could u overlook this beauty, andre porter? they BELONG together.

take that, take that, take that

we never got into the whole NYer cover satire mess (and probably for the best), but i thought you BGs would be amused by vanity fair's mccain version - complete with cindy's stolen pills, johnny's walker, constitution aflame in the fireplace and good ol' GW peering approvingly from the mantel place.

whatever.

kind of a mess

but also kind of perfect, no?

(sartorialist, of course.)

the realest shit she ever wrote

"I feel like maybe the balance has been thrown out of whack. It’s just hard to blog about a transitional period. Especially while still in one. Moments alternate between those of extreme motivation, and those of profound laziness. Rent a few movies, read a few books. Work a few hours at that part-time job so you can keep renting at Blockbuster, buying the books.

Sometimes the empty spaces are nice. The times that you don’t realize anything is happening are the times you will look back at and say, ‘that was nice.’ And it was. It really was."

-my nigga

dip set?

no, that's actually denzel's son with daddy on vacay in st. tropez.

Like Christmas, y'all!

(photo of khia chambers by ramell ross)

it's the day we've all been waiting and dreaming and praying for since Thug Misses!!!

today is the day that our generation's nina simone, KHIA, drops her much-anticipated, often-imitated/never-duplicated new joint Nasti Musik on sidewalks and in bootleg record shops country wide!

FUCK puttin' tampa on the map, y'all! Dirty Down finna put tampa onya ASS!

rhetorical questions

"do y'all tell me or do i tell y'all?" - kimora lee

perfect!

now THIS is celebrity dating, bgs. not boring actors meeting on set or reality stars mutually obsessed with themselves. this is a supermodel and a rock star!

...and all is right with the world.

like shaq misses free throws.

that is how much i have missed this fucking blog!

i have been completely cut off from everything - technologically, geographically - for the last two weeks. and this laptop, this wireless, this bar im stealing it from. all of it is like a breath of fresh air. well. london is fine. more or less the way i left it. cold. chilly. somehow still lovely. just about sums it all up. i miss so many things about home. when i was home i missed so many things about being here. proactively trying to reconcile these fractured selves. not yet in the house. the painters seem to have moved in, actually, so he and i are staying with his mom. things are uneventful and insanely busy at the same time. a bit of the not-so-calm before the storm. it's cold. it drizzles at least once a day. probably hasn't been above 65 fahrenheit. sweater weather to me. everyone else seems to think it's warm. still haven't figured out how to do Celsius, so can't even hold a conversation about it. happy. healthy. dull ache in my head every day, but i think that's from grinding my teeth. which is just the sound of the pound annihilating my dollar. time for dinner. still praying for wireless. miss. love.

sooo... who's this j. holiday??

he cute tho ....

am i the only one...?

...who doesn't give an "F word" that Rev.Jesse used "the N word" (to another black man, no less)?

i love jesse, in spite of everything.
and i love his wife jackie even more!

thinspiration

"I'm over food." -Amy Sacco

gets me urrtime

don't hate her cuz you ain't her.

effortless

maybe it's the ginormous gold rolie on the arm (or the nipples), but i'm loving jen's easybreezybeautiful look right here.

from g's to cancelled

so last night i watched MTV's new Jamie Foxx produced reality show hosted by the Fonz.

Show is terrible. the g's are actually b's with the exception of a couple of stars.... it just doesn't have the flavor of love-ness I was looking for. But... two (if not more) contestants are from Miami. And I met a goon who rivals Algernod...

CREEPA
creepa is from miami gardens... it is quite possible we grew up together. he is sex. the golds, the slightly cocked eye.. the fact that all the other housemates are kinda intimidated by him... all amount to our future together.

if he does have kids, they aren't leaving their funky ass dora panties on the floor before we do the nasty.

oh yea the show is lame as hell... but I'll be watching thanks to Creepa.

for my persephone

i know you like the chest meats, boo. "T for taco!"

some heavy choreography for that ass

all i need is 3 stacks.

we did NOT do it

the other night, when we were about to commence our sexy times, and i rolled over and saw a pair of dora the explorer panties that belonged to your toddler daughter.... i did NOT feel very sexy. and we did NOT do it.

i love kids. when they're not yours and they belong to one of my siblings. i love baby lotion. as tattoo moisturizer and powder fresh lube. i love cartoons. when we're drunk and it's family guy.

so long as those panties are in the room. we will not do it, and i will say i have a sudden headache caused by a depleted sex drive.

-a direct report from Zamunda

american beauty

“ I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much; my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life...You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... You will someday. ”

freedom!

god celebrated the end of her vegan cleanse by jetting to portofino for some shopping, eating and yachting with gayle and pal tyler perry.

here she is on her way out of louis.

i assume a team of manservants is carrying the purchases.


ball, baby, or don't ball at all.

heaven

"Sharkey and Francesca always come for the boat trips. They keep on their leashes and harnesses, and spend most of the time napping, wrapped in towels."
-Martha Stewart

for more on martha's adorable french bulldogs (francesca was named after martha's best friend in prison), visit martha's most pleasant blog.

and as always, r.i.p. kublai khan paw paw chow chow chow. we miss you.

the paris shows

ms. jackson and her big ol' purse scored a V.I. view of the lacroix presentation in paris last week

we've missed you!

hi, bgs! just a quick apology for being MIA the past few days. the babygirls have been away celebrating our great and conflicted nation by frolicking carefree everywhere from malibu to the vineyard to barcelona. reports and regular posting to return shortly!

relax yourself girl, please settle down

i boast of being an only child, while admiring my brother from afar. i think it takes a certain degree of strength, resilience, self-awareness and calm to come here alone. to this world. to stay here alone. to be here alone. a new apartment that serves as an extension of my house house. 21 yrs later. taking the same baths with the same candles that my mother used to take. releasing the same stress through her sweating pores, as she let the scalding water envelop her round body. i used to sit at the end of her tub and wash her back. proud to be her ambassador.

now i sit in my own tub. in that same scalding water. same candle, different thoughts pushing through my pores. yet i hold her same weight. a weight i was unable to see at 7, 8, 9 yrs old. but now i recognize it fully. i hold it on my shoulders, carry it in my heart. and i pour it into my tub. like mommy did.

they come to my house and ask, "where's your shower curtain?"

we have never needed one.