MNR: godTIER

#MNR: god TIER
 
“Whoever said that what I say and portray is negativity, need to come and kick it in the city with me.”
Dr. Dre
 
“I got too many hoes...but they ain’t you. You like to put that shit up your nose...but I still love you.”
Brent Faiyaz
 
Every time I sit before my Mac to create another #MNR, I am in essence a prisoner to my own imagination. In my mind, I want this to be a pavilion, a place of refuge in times of downpour. I want it to be your weekly newsletter, crafted in the spirit of a broadcast. I want it to be your local council meeting. I want it to be an unplanned yet necessitous visit to the museum. I want it to be an excursion deep into the dense foliage of your personal feelings as well as mine. I want it to be the battle cry of our universal community through communication, which inevitably reveals a common unity.
 
I know my brother Mr. Ten can dig it. I’m high as Italian gas prices and eagle pussy.
 
Years before smartphones and Wi-Fi, around the time Google was a relatively unknown web site and Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones ethered Shawn Corey Carter, my uncle proclaimed that we all lived in a microwave society. The essence of his statement was easily discernible. The immediate thought is that society wants things to happen in short time, as microwaves do in fact cook food quickly. But the deeper dive incorporates the microwave’s counterpart, the oven. Damn it, Monday. There you go again. We know that microwaves cook food faster than an oven. Duh. You’re right. But my point is this – which tastes better? And why?
 
You must always put the [proper] time in if you want something, or more concisely, your creation to be its best. That’s the entire point of it taking time. A quick fix is exactly what its name suggests: a fix. A fix that is quick. Junkies need a quick fix. It immediately takes them to the moon [and beyond]. But when their SpaceX pod returns to the filthy ass, vermin infested bando they’re getting superhero high in, they’re right back where they began. Those of us who aren’t drug addicts are still challenged with forsaking quality for the quick fix in other aspects of our lives. We are satisfied for a little while, but it isn’t long before we are yet again displeased. Quality, on the other hand, is long lasting. It is appreciated because it is worth the cost, literally and figuratively. You are more prone to appreciate something you invested time and hard work into than something you “threw together.”
 
I think that the true essence of my uncle’s wisdom is that in addition to wanting things quick, fast, and in a hurry, we also love to rush to judgement. The court of public opinion adjudicates a case waaaaaay before an actual file is charged. I believe that social media has rendered due process outside of the courtroom impossible. Jump on the twitter to defend a celebrity who has allegedly done something amoral and see what happens to your cape wearing ass. They’re going to cook your ass in the same open flame they cook the nigga you dove into the social media cesspool to save. The fight’s rigged. You can’t win. You have no chance.
 
Want nuance on top of nuance? Cool. I brought an extra clip with me.
 
We don’t only rush to judgement on guilt or innocence, we also rush to judgement on who is or isn’t “finished.” We write people off and count people out with no type of sensical reasoning involved, other than the perception (or reality) that their last performance wasn’t epic and/or extremely underwhelming. We immediately negate all the success and hard work a person has achieved up until that point. That’s nasty work. Disgusting. And we all know that it stems from hate. You couldn’t wait to see that man or woman have a slip-up. Now you’re ready to pull up and burn their castle down. Their success is the bane of your existence. Their faux pas is your opportunity to finally have a moment in the sun, with your ole hating ass. Ironically, that’s your quick fix. You’ll go back to hating soon thereafter. You can’t help it. It’s in your blood. You come from a long lineage of haters. Your daddy. Your big booty auntie. Your grandmama dem. Alluvum.
 
If you’re a person in your 40s or older who is compelled to run on social media and tell your personal business, you may qualify for my latest study. Please contact me at [email protected] if interested. Please leave your name, age, sex, and a personal rating of 1-5 of how important you feel you are to random MF who don’t even know who TF you are. There will be no compensation for the study, but you will receive a wealth of blunt yet pertinent self-awareness.
 
Please don’t ever think that genius is limited to academic acumen and mere perception. Genius has many different forms and appears in many ways. That taciturn man who can barely read a restaurant menu can break an engine down and put it back together as easily as a prodigy can solve a Rubik’s Cube. That brother with beer on his breath who is a bit rough around the edges can lay tile with a personal brand of creativity and precision that keeps him in high demand without a social media presence or brick and mortar business. That young woman with purple hair and ten million facial piercings can invade and paralyze a casino’s entire network with a few keystrokes. Stop acting like you can read a person solely based on race, gender, sexual preference, appearance, socioeconomic status, or whatever TF you feel makes a person inferior. Let their work be the standard by which they are judged. Never underestimate anyone.
 
If you think I forgot then you must have forgotten that I rarely, if ever, forget. If you think that I don’t discern nuance, sarcasm, or ignorance you are mistaken. You are ignorant, and there is no sarcasm in my nuance. If you think I didn’t do my homework, I don’t blame you for the thought. You weren’t aware that I read and mastered the unit before it was discussed in class. If you think that I’m ever scared when entering the field of play, you are tragically unaware that I am a master of preparation. If you think that God’s children won’t win in the end, you sadly read the story all the way through and yet misinterpreted its ending.
 
Me: But I thought –
Archie G. Warren, Sr.: Do they pay you to think?
 
Joji, I love how you randomly quote something from the blog in the middle of class. I love you, period. Big ups to Justine for being a real one, from our discussion at the Irish watering hole the other day to casually letting me know you read my blogs. I fux with you a long way. Big ups to all my ardent supporters; there is no #MNR without you. Big ups to all the nickel bag spots in Harlem and #BXNYC in the mid-90s. I miss that era. I was so young and pretty, and my tolerance for mid to low grade reefa was so low. Peace, y’all. I’m out through one of the trap walls in a Scooby episode. A he, he, he, he, he!