Valentine’s Day this year was on a Friday. I wasn’t on my Chuck Woolery (Love Connection host; a dating show from the ‘80s…forget it) or anything, rather, I was taking flight with my brogods @themisterceizzo and @CraftyLefty57 at @themisterceizzo crib in the 4th, good old Englewood, New Jerusalem, USA, in midst of one of the 50-11 snow storms that we endured this past winter. As I looked from a bird’s eye view at the ground, I guestimated about how much snow had accumulated in the bro’s backyard. There literally had to be like four or five snowstorms in a two or three week’s period of time, and consistent temps in the mid-20s at best to considerably lower, so there was no melting at all. So I’m figuring, right. I’m guessing at least three feet of accumulation or better. Every street corner in the 4th on Lafayette had at least five feet of snow piled up, cutting sidewalks off, making colored folk like myself have to walk in the streets. Oh yeah…we do that anyway in the 4th (don’t ask me why; I’ve only been mobbing through the 4th the past decade or so). Anyways, we’re in the ciph, feeling real wavy, when I hear wood crack. I was the only one of us three that heard it initially. The second time all of us heard it. The third time the bro’s next door neighbor’s garage came tumbling down, buckling under the weight of weeks of accumulated snow turned ice on the roof. I’m talmbout a garage made of cinderblocks. It was my first live viewing of a natural disaster. All three of us were like WTF for a good twenty minutes. New York Metro got between 57-60 inches of snow this past winter, way, way, way more than a normal winter. I know for a fact that in the past five or so years we’ve had a winter with right under three (3) whole inches of snowfall total. So where does five feet come from? I remember thinking that night that we would never see God’s green earth again; that we were doomed to endure a modern Ice Age. I mean, I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but five or so weeks of not seeing ANY grass is tough on the morale. We’re used to snow up top in the northeast, but not on some eastern European Slavic type ish, and not with those Antarctic low temperatures. We didn’t see 20 degrees a solid two weeks in a row. WTF?
Thankfully, somehow, we were able to escape the coldest winter ever (sounds catchy; maybe I should use that title…) and again see green grass. So far, spring has been fairly underwhelming from a temperature standpoint until the past Memorial Day weekend. We saw a couple days of 85 plus degree weather, so hot on Memorial Day, that I was forced to go on ‘head and throw the good old AC in the window. I had to give the AC the nod for team MVP that day. It was hot(ter) then two MF. It was so hot, slaves woulda called in a personal day to Massa. It was so hot that I saw a Greyhound bus pass by with the dog on the inside. I shrugged when the bus passed by, the dog shrugged back at me and wiped his forehead like “It’s hot, nigga! Fuck you expect?” And I’m talmbout 10 pm and it’s still 82 degrees out, 1,000 percent humidity. Then, I wake up this morning, and it’s like 63 degrees, but throughout the day it felt like it was in the 50s or lower. Throw in a light drizzle from time to time. By dusk, it was actually cold outside. Basically, what I’m getting at is what’s really good with the weather? I’m by no means questioning the BIG Fella up above on how HE does what HE does, I’m just saying that this shit is uncanny AF. It’s like extreme weather these days. One day you want to head to Jersey Shore or Six Flags and the next day you feel like if your pride weren’t so serious you’d reach into the back of your closet and grab that Pelle leather or Polo vest out. I’m no scientist so I won’t bring global warming into the discussion. Church folk will tell you this is a sign that we’re in the last and evil days. All I’m saying is that this is some trippy type shit. I feel like that meme when the bruva had all types of clothes on, not knowing how in TF to dress for the day. For me, it’s made the Weather Channel app on my iPhone one of my most used apps. You have to consult the “experts” before you step out your door each morning, or risk playing yourself. I don’t recall all this insanity back in the day. Some of my conspiracy theorists feel like the weather is being altered by man. It makes you wonder. There’s been OD hurricanes, typhoons, landslides, tornadoes, etc. the past few years, seemingly many more than normal. I read that the Syrians had been working on developing weather altering technology. I don’t put a damn thing past governments and scientists. Global politics is a dirty game, and the enemy has refined, readjusted and redefined how he plays hardball. It’s only fair, cuz we’ve played with no ref since day one. Regardless, this weather is crazy. I don’t know what to expect. But hey, it beats the alternative.
Send all love/hate mail to [email protected]. Follow me on the Twitter @tymonday, as well as my aforementioned brogod @themisterceizzo and our team @crewunB. Pick up some of our fly a la carte apparel after you finish reading. Don’t run down on us and glaze this summer when you see our tees matching our Nikes. We tried to told ya. PS…if you thought that I didn’t know that The Coldest Winter Ever was an acclaimed novel you’re a fucking idiot. And the alternative, of course, to bad weather or anything else in life is always death. Never forget that. Y’all be cool how y’all be cool. Water.

Some wise man or woman somewhere at some point in time said, “Better to go too soon than too late.” I must agree. I’d much rather say my last goodbyes and tip on out gracefully than be outchea looking washed up and getting talked crazy about behind my back AND in my damn face. There’s always a retired hater somewhere that’ll bring up an old and tired Willie Mays unsuccessfully chasing down fly balls in Shea Stadium as a Met in the early ‘70s, years removed from his glory days in the Polo Grounds with the New York Baseball Giants. And I’m definitely the type of New Jack Hater to bring up Mike with his rusty ass knees struggling in the second game of back-to-backs and bickering with disrespectful new millennium teammates as a 40something guard/GM with the Washington Wizards. Opinions may vary, but in most cases I’d rather see greatness leave while still on top. It sucks seeing legacies tarnished in any way, even though true fans choose to ignore the lackluster endings. But that’s the fans. Critics, who often determine the weight of legacy, use these lackluster endings to justify undercutting all time greatness. I say this because I feel that Law & Order: SVU is currently the visual embodiment of going too late. Fifteen seasons deep, it’s given us more than enough memorable episodes, moments, and lasting impressions. But to myself and several other day one fans I’ve spoken with, it’s run its course. Truthfully speaking, SVU hasn’t been the same since Stabler (Christopher Meloni) parted ways a couple seasons ago. They’ve taken the character of Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) in a direction that’s way OD for no apparent reason. Kragen and Munch have said their goodbyes as well. Amaro and Rollins are okay…nah, they’re wack. They’re still underusing Ice. I also have a problem with how they’ve flipped the “ripped from the headlines” episodes the past few seasons. The all-time fail had to come earlier this past season with the bikers kidnapping the girl and her mother, an obvious rip-off of the West Side Highway/Washington Heights incident with the bikers and the SUV in which the SUV ran over one of one of the biker’s legs. They totally wasted that headline for a brief piece of the plot that wasn’t even necessary. SVU still has its share of memorable moments and good episodes, but all in all, it’s become dry and predictable. Let it go while it’s still one of my favorite shows ever.
Why are you Negroes so insistent and persistent in your infatuation with the Illuminati? More concisely, why are you so damn adamant about certain Black celebrities being members of the Illuminati? I’ll speak on the Illuminati itself first. I’ll start by saying that I read Behold a Pale Horse way back in 1996 as a freshman at VUU (Big ups to that book’s owner, my nigga for life Rock Lark). For those of you who don’t know, that piece of literature is a major component in the Illuminati movement. It’s by Milton William Cooper, an alleged ex-military guy who was high up enough in rank to have had access to confidential government information. He talks about everything from aliens to AIDS to Kennedy’s assassination to the mythical Illuminati itself. You can read the book if you want all the particulars. But this is my blog, so I’m gonna give you my spin on all this secret society shit. Are there a select few capitalists who dictate the flow of the world’s economy? Absolutely. This has gone on since America has been America, perhaps before. We still see obvious remnants of it today via things like media ownership grandfather exemptions. It’s all about old money at the end of the day because old money has always had all the say. Now, whether or not there is some secret meeting right now that includes all the world’s elite devils about how to continue dominating society the way they have the past few thousand years? I seriously doubt it. Rich white dudes don’t clique up too tough. They rock with their families. They make money, teach their young how to do it, die, and pass their money and influence down to their young. They don’t have any New Day Co-op type shit going. Trust me. Why would they ever have to hide shit? They never have.
Now…for you porch monkeys who from time to time waste five to ten minutes of my precious time trying to convince me that Jay Z, Beyonce, and Young Jeezy are members of the Illuminati…may you eat a delicious Italian dish, lay down, choke and die of acid reflux. If there is in fact an old boy network that predates modern civilization in full effect, why in the fidduck would they include colored MF of any type? And Jeezy? Jeezy?  I’ve actually had more than two MF tell me that Jay Jenkins is a member of the Illuminati? Boy, if it wasn’t for my grandma dem, MLK, and James Brown, I swear fo’ God I’d trade you darkies in for a used NYC driven ’87 Hyundai Sonata. Y’all need to open a damn book. Expand your mind.
Send all love/hate mail and lucrative contract offers to [email protected]. Follow me on the Twitter @tymonday, as well as my brogod @themisterceizzo and our squadron @crewunB. Our a la carte apparel is picking up its expected spring/summer momentum. We finna be up in Dwight Morrow High School in a hot second. We’re already all up in Grieco Elementary. Y’all be cool how y’all be cool. Water.

#whatsyourfavsong?
It’s that feeling, y’all. It’s music, yet again.
“Then cool out to the music cuz it makes you feel serene, with the birds and the bees and all those groovy things. Like getting stomach aches when you gotta go to work, or staring into space when you’re feeling berserk…”
“Music is the soul of the man. Music makes a, happy day. Music makes a cloud flow by, baby. Your music is my tears inside my eyes.  Your music makes me want to sing. Girl music, is a joy to bring. Music is my heart and soul, more precious than gold.”
For the record, that’s Q-Tip from “We’ve Got the Jazz”, and The Master himself, the great, late Marvin Gaye along with Erick Sermon on “Music,” a track that Erick paired both his rap lyrics and production with Marvin’s a cappella lyrics from “Turn On Some Music (I’ve Got My Music).”
If you ever in life feel like you don’t have a friend in the world, never forget the fact that you’ve always got music. Just press play. The genre doesn’t matter: rap, r&b, rock, country, gospel, punk, grunge, big band, blue grass, alternative, reggae, classical, salsa, merengue, freestyle (think Marc Anthony mid-80s, not Murda Mook and Loaded Lux), reggaeton, go-go, new wave, heavy metal…whatever. Put your left and right Beats or ear buds on or in. Get into your zone.
Personally, my mood and/or activity rarely define my musical preference. Moreover, I’m an eclectic. I can be working out on the court playing Mary’s My Life album start to finish. I can be putting a Dutch of #dour in the air to Miles Davis’ “Moon Dreams” off The Birth of the Cool. I can be writing a blog to Talking Heads’ “Once In a Lifetime” (in progress). But it doesn’t matter. My PNC Mr. Ten told me about one of his Decatur niggas who would be in the Chevy riding out en route to a “Lick” playing Diana Ross, burner on the lap. It doesn’t matter. It’s your preference. You flow how you feel like flowing.
How often do you hear a song that makes you stop dead in your tracks, regardless of whatever you’re doing? Not only does it stop you dead in your tracks, it also immediately puts you in the DeLorean with the flux capacitor and takes you directly to a specific memory associated with that song. Often time it takes you back to that period of time when the song was out, that time when it was “the rave of the town to your foes and your friends” (that’s Q-Tip again, same damn song). Anytime I hear “Flipside,” it’s immediately summer 2003 in Jeff Projects. It was the theme song to that summer. It was a much younger me, Jose, and Leaha, and Shay Shay was still trying to get walking down pact. It was the last summer that I listened to the radio, save being in someone’s car or in someone’s house. I was a completely different person. So was the world. Few outside the state of Illinois had ever heard of Barack Obama. No one’s phone took pictures; there was no true smart phone or full web browser on phones. It was seven years before my first tweet. P.R. was still living. Life goes on, life changes. Those songs that are an indelible part of your heart and soul, they change too. They get better and better with time. They’re that good kinda change. That’s just one song. I can name a million songs and a million memories to associate with them, as can you. I’ve coined a term for a complete time period of r&b. I label all early to mid ‘80s r&b the #WBLSdays, a tribute to my formative years when 107.5 was on in my apartment(s) in uptown NYC, the time period when I’d learn 95% of the ethics in life that are most important. It was the time when, to me, my mommy was as tall as the floats she’d take me downtown to see every Thanksgiving Day morning at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Somehow, all these years later, she’s even more amazing.
I basically only broached upon music and what it means to me, means to us. I could write a War and Peace sized blog on that, if the spirit were to hit me. But I feel that this bit is enough. Music is on my mind even more than money. Just like Papa Levert dem, I love music. Music gives me life.
Send all love/hate mail to [email protected]. Follow me on the twitter @tymonday, where I talk historic horseshit on a semi-regular basis. Also be sure to follow my brogod @themisterceizzo, as well as our squadron @crewunB. While you’re on the site, be sure to scoop some of our fly and original a la carte tees. We plan to dominate the summer, then the globe. Y’all be cool how y’all be cool.

My apologies for the lack of a blog or blogs last week, I was faking. Really, I was making moves, but I don’t deal with excuses, true or untrue, so…let’s get down with the get down. Feliz Cinco de Mayo a todo mi gente del mundo, especialmente mis Mexicanos y Chicanos. Salud. Libertad.
I’m bouncing from thought to thought tonight, y’all. As always, buckle up. But tonight, go on ‘head and turn off all cellular devices. We are ascending to 25,000 feet into the strata. Our destination…the blessed Kush Mountains of Asia.
The only crazy thing I wanted to discuss about last week was obviously the Donald Sterling matter. But of course, my view is my view and not necessarily the view of the masses. I understand that all of you children of the Civil Rights Movement were in uproar about Sterling’s comments, and deservedly so. The statements Sterling made were deplorable, despicable, degrading, and desensitized. They were also candid words from an old white man who was raised long ago to think this way, words shared by plenty of men like him in this great nation as well as this world. But here’s where I employ the pragmatism that has oft made me the villain of intellectual circles from here to El Segundo and back: if you ask me, he’s saying what plenty of our bosses say about us every day. These are the same things they joke about with colleagues over $200 shots of cognac and fine imported cigars. This is how they perceive us; as little more than troglodyte proletarians in their perennial campaign of global dominance, and could care less than shit about us outside our ability to bring in revenue. It doesn’t hurt my feelings at all. At best, we are multimillion dollar niggas in their eyes. Much respect to the great Dave Parker, who coined the term “million dollar nigga” when responding to a statement made by his former boss and owner of the Cincinnati Reds Marge Schott, a far worse owner (in my eyes) than Sterling. That’s how plenty of them view us. Oh well. They got rid of Sterling…great. I guess. If you love it I like it. But hate is a part of life, whether black, white, Jew, Hispanic, Asian, gay & lesbian…hate. We can’t get them all. But we can use their ignorance to bring our collective diversity to a common arena where we can, through mutual education, erase prior ignorance that ruins the minds of men. That’s my theory. Adios, Donald Sterling, puto. But the pragmatist in me has to finish with this simple statement: there will be others.
The entire free world knows that I’m not too fond of a certain rapper named Jay Z. The world also knows that I’ve got my reasons. But regardless, who gives a shit. But I’ll tell Shawn one thing: he better leave that boy Aubrey alone. His cheap shot on the Jay Electronica freestyle was typical Jay, below the belt fuckery. I really don’t get his sissy ass approach to doing what he does. But anyways…no need for me to play Chris Chambers from Stand By Me. Drake jumped off in Jiggaman’s ass on “Draft Day,” subliminally, of course. But if you listen up you’ll get it. Really, Ion care about their riff, but it raises a question that I’ve been asking for a minute. Why do y’all hate that man Drizzy for being a lover and speaking on his feelings? If that’s who he is, isn’t he just keeping it a buck? Y’all would hate that man beyond any type of measure if he transitioned from Degrassi to a career in gangster rap. But he stuck to the script of the light skinned, pretty nigga, lady lover that he is. I can’t hate him for that. I’m sorry. Then, for good measure, the kid is nice AF. I know bars; his bars can stand up against some of the best. His laid back, braggadocios approach to riding tracks has made him upwards of $50 million. I ain’t mad at him. I’m not mad at his detractors and their endless jokes, memes, and “Drake the type of nigga that…” either. It’s all fair game, if you ask me. You gotta put up with the hate if you accept the glory. I’m sure Aubrey hasn’t lost a minute of rest to this day. But hey, at the end of the day you can’t win. Syke. You can laugh all the way to the bank, just like Drake. I’m with that formula.
Roy Hibbert is a bum. Deport his bama ass back to Maryland. Let him play drums in a DC storefront church with an unusually low ceiling and a damaged snare. The Wizards look like the second best team in the East. The West is still wide open in my opinion. The Spurs are the safe choice, but I’m not so sure. The world wants to see KD vs. King James. Me too. Regardless of who survives, this has already been one of the most exciting NBA Playoffs of my lifetime. And already, I think I’ve honesty seen about eight more 4 point plays than in my entire lifetime. #KNICKSNATION, even in our wretched condition. I’m loyal, through death.
That’s all. For now.
Send all love/hate mail to [email protected]. Follow me on the Twitter @tymonday, as well as my brogod @themisterceizzo and our squadron, @crewunB. Be sure to scoop some of our a la carte designed tees, it’s going to be an #unbearable summer.