Dying to Live, yet Living to Die

Wassup, dope fiends!

I want everyone reading this blog to feel comfortable and included, which is why I'm gonna talk to you today about Jesus... Na. I'm just joking. But what I am gonna talk about may possibly make some of you feel uncomfortable. So consider this your disclaimer...

"Troo, what is this topic of which you speak?"

I'm glad you asked. The topic of the day revolves around death... Still there? Good.

The worse part about being away from home is that you leave people behind. You don't necessarily forget them, but you go on to start your own life and acquire your own problems. As well, the people back home continue to live out their natural lives; which unfortunately means that a few of them will die. Actually, they all will. And so will all of us. Death is a natural part of life, and completely inevitable... You still there? Good. Uncomfortable yet? Sorry.

Last week, someone whom I knew in my youth had their young life taken from them by a stray bullet. And it was only last month that a dear family member lost their battle with cancer. Both occurrences were very sad. As well, they both made me very angry. But naturally, I couldn't help but to turn the situation onto myself... I began to think about my own mortality.

"Don't think like that, Troo. You ain't gonna die."

Shut your dumb ass up. Yes, I am. Those days of thinking that I'm invincible/untouchable/immortal are over! Hell, anytime I take a painful dump, I pray that this isn't the end. "Not like this. Not like this." (Who peeped that Matrix reference? lol) Which brings me to my next point...

The thing that sucks most about death is that you don't know when, where or how it will occur. (Although, would you really want to know?) I've come to terms with the fact that one day we all have to go. But what I can't stand, and refuse to accept, is that the dumbest of things can take me out. For instance, I was drinking some water the other day and it went down the wrong pipe. (Scary!) I nearly drowned in dry clothes. What the fuck? How would that have looked? My ass laid out in the living room dead from a bottle of Poland Springs. (Have you seen that show "10,000 ways to die"? It can happen!)

Even more stressful than thinking about how you can die, is when and where. If I must go, I pray its not in a public restroom stall. One, that's embarrassing. And two, no one would realize I'm dead. They'd just think that I'm going to the bathroom. That's probably my biggest fear - dying and people not knowing/not knowing what happened to me.

So I've mentioned how I don't wanna go. You're probably wondering how I would like to go...

Most guys would say, "I wanna die during sex." Ill! That's disgusting. Ladies, you don't have to worry about me wanting to die during. No, ma'am... I wanna die right after. It's stupid to die during. I wanna finish up. One last shot before I go. Ideally, it would be with my wife. I'd drift off to sleep, and go with a smile on my face. I originally thought about dying while spooning after sex, but I fear that it would be traumatizing for my wife to have a corpse holding onto her when she woke up in the morning...

You still there? Well, you don't have to be. I'm done. But feel free to answer at least one of these questions:

1. Have you seen "10,000 ways to die"? If so, what's the worse you've seen?
2. Is there a such thing as a "cool" way to die?

RIP S.M., S.D.

MAGIC

So, I’m sitting on the train over the weekend minding my own Regular business when who should wheel their squeaky-ass shopping cart onto the A-Train with me and 40 other people? Why, none other than the (not so) world famous weird-long-haired-does-magic-on-the-train-no-matter-if-you-want-to-see-it-or-not-guy!

“HOORAY,” we (never) shouted!

“HOORAY for the (uncomfortable) magic show we are about to witness!” we (opposite of) exclaimed.

And then, on with the show. And quite a show it was, actually. He pulled some girls panties out of the bottom of her jeans (they were pink, just in case you really wanted to know), turned someone’s empty water bottle into like a hundred pennies, and then there was the finale...

He reached into a hat.

And out of the hat, he pulls out a beautiful handful of air followed by a mass of confused facial expressions. Needless to say, we were quite unimpressed. Out of nowhere, mister magician then gets angry, like really angry, (like get me outta this tight ass train angry) puts the hat back on top of the shopping cart and begins bashing the hell out of it. And he is literally now hulking out on this hat, crushing it over and over again with his closed fist. Until he stops.

He pauses to catch his breath, picks the hat back up, inspects the outside of it and, very smooth-like, reaches inside once more.

And the car goes silent...

He violently throws the hat down against the shopping cart, and to everybody’s surprise, there is now, all of sudden, a fluttering white (possibly pigeon or) dove in the air of our subway car. And the crowd goes wild... The show was simply, amazing.

At least, it should have been.

Unfortunately, I found myself totally oblivious to any type of amazement whatsoever. The entire time he was doing the trick, I was completely overcome by this one all-consuming thought, “did he really have that bird jammed up his jacket sleeve since he got on the train?” What?

Yes, that was me. I was the one standing there, after it was all over, wondering just exactly how many birds this guy smothered putting his show together. I mean come on right? He definitely had to have practiced on a few pigeons before he brought the doves out. We all know, those things don't come cheap (I didn't fact check that, but I'm pretty sure they're not the poor man's bird of choice). Now, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Et Cetera is not the all-cynical-all-the-time guy by any stretch of the term, but he certainly looked that way 14 minutes into his half-hour ride back home at the end of what was actually a decent show. And he didn’t feel any type of way about it either. I mean, if the man had a “eff Magic” t-shirt on, he couldn’t have been more transparent about the way he felt (that's it for the 3rd person narrative interlude, trust me, it hurts me more than it hurts you).

But then, the magician began shuffling around our crowded little rolling coke can of a subway car with his money pail out. And, as I tried (avoiding eye contact with the magician by) looking at some stupid ad on the other side of the train, I saw this little girl acting like she just had just seen a man walk on water. She was practically having a meltdown over there, going on and on about all the “cool stuff that guy just did!!!” She would not shut up. And, after begging her mother for what seemed like years, she got a dollar, walked over to the magician, dropped the bill inside and said, “that was amazing!” (Which basically smacked that snarky look di-rectly off of my face to a place I have yet to recover from). Then, the doors opened and we both watched him walk out of the train. And then he was gone.

So, as I stood there gripping that sticky new york city steel rail, I pensively rocked back and forth with my fellow public transpo patrons until I landed in BedStuy. And, I couldn’t help but wonder...

What the hell happened to magic?



I mean, I don’t know exactly when it happened for sure. But somewhere around puberty, after wrestling became fake, but a little ways before girls started going “all the way”, everything became a whole lot harder for me to enjoy without spoil, you know, because of that whole "thinking about all the dead birds in a jacket lining" thing.

What about you guys, when it comes to music, movies, magic, or whatever are you still excited by the “cool stuff” or are you steadily finding your self more and more these days thinking about all the dead birds?

L is for the way you look at me...

And it makes me sick.

Either you down with the He-Man Woman Hater's Club, or your dead!

No, I'm just playing, I just really like the song from the Little Rascals. Which actually brings me to the point of this whole blog,

How cool it was (is) to be a kid.

Over the course of this past week, I got to share some good times and great drugs with some of my closest friends. Yes, the great times would have been had sans drugs but #wheretheydothatat? (not here) Anyways, I got's the thinking.."I've known this girl Natalie since the second grade and now we are doing drugs together." It's quite hilarious when you think about it.

I thought about how much fun it was to be a kid and think of the whole future you had ahead of you, how you could be a doctor, astronaut and lawyer in one afternoon and the next day forget you even had those wack ass dreams because now being a power ranger was all you were about.

Of course we all have to grow up sometimes and put our kick-ass black ranger dancing karate moves to the back (sigh) but what about those of us who never really stopped being a kid. Do we have a place in the real world. I met a girl at work who said she could never date someone like me because I was too child like. She said I didn't take life seriously enough and that she was looking for something more, mature if you will.

I replied I could never date her because she was too ugly. I also mentioned that this was not good first day at work conversation. I then told her she would probably end up with someone just as boring as her and they would have boring jobs and boring kids. Harsh, maybe but not really.

You see, I know that I am not mature for my age, I don't really mind that. What I am seeing is so many of my constituents, friends and others in my age bracket rushing to be this super adult who is so responsible, saves money, volunteers, et cetera, et cetera and I don't know who these people are. I don't see why as we get older we have to let go of our imaginations. People stop looking for their fairytale and settle for their Greek tragedies. (pun intended)

No people, I am not naive enough to believe in fairytales or that all of our dreams come true if we wish upon a star. Shit, I've been wishing for these damn super powers for my whole life now to no avail but I never lost my imagination. Part of me thinks it's television and film. They've created such great worlds of fantasy and fun that people fail to think for themselves. I saw some kind of deer at the BX Zoo the other day that looked so damn real, it looked like they could of done it in CGI. This is probably why if you were to ask any random person on the street their ideal mate was, they would probably describe some mass marketed idea that everyone has. (and I know that's none of you guys, right.)

It's a shame that people feel imagination must die to be some great adult. If you imagine great things, you'll always have a dream to chase, a goal to achieve, something to do at the very least.

I think about it this way. When I was in 5th grade, never did i IMAGINE i would be doing drugs on a daily basis. Shit, I had memorized all 10 ways to say no to the kids that would eventually try and make me do drugs. And after all that, I only needed one way to say yes. (YES). My point is, don't limit yourself based on what you can see right now because clearly things change and sometimes what you thought isn't what it is.

So, as you watch the little people around you grow, just remember that they will be doing all the dumb shit that you promised you weren't going to do at one point and time. So try not to tell yourself "I'll never, I wouldn't" or anything like that because shit, I said I'd never blog.

Food for thought:

What's something you do right now that you never saw yourself doing before?

What's something you could never see yourself doing right now?

From Degrees to Derelicts...

Here's something most people don't see every day: A homeless Asian person.

Seeing a homeless Asian person is like seeing a unicorn or an Iota (lol). I've never seen a homeless Asian person... until recently. The city where I currently reside has a large homeless population. Very unfortunate. Very sad. There are homeless people of different ages, genders, nationalities, and mental capacities.

It makes me wonder: "How does one become homeless?"

In the movie, The Soloist (great movie!) starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr, Foxx's character goes crazy while he's a student at Juliart. He runs away from school and his family to live on the street. But this can't be how one becomes homeless. One, because every homeless person isn't crazy. And two, not every homeless person can play the cello. So how does it happen?

I kept asking myself that question, until one day I saw it (cue dramatic music: dum, dum, dum). I saw a homeless man wearing a shirt with Greek letters on it. Yes, indeed, this man was a member of a fraternity. It was Sigma Theta something, I believe. I don't know. All I know is that it wasn't Omega Psi Phi. I also saw another homeless person wearing a shirt from Michigan State. It dawned on me. It all became clear...

College makes people go homeless!

Think about. It happened in The Soloist and I noticed those two people on the street. Signs come in threes! As well, when you think about what college has done to all of us, it makes perfect sense...

(1) College keeps us sheltered from the real world. After graduation, we're on our own; only to discover that a lot of people don't care about how many organizations you were a part of, what your GPA was, or even that you got a degree at all. We don't know how to deal! And (2) we go broke from tuition, loans, etc. Your parents aren't gonna help you out anymore. They've been helping you for over twenty years. "Buy your own damn groceries!" We don't even have money to start our lives. And if we do, Salli Mae and her goons are at your door asking for their money back... with interest (Sounds like the mob).

My simple solution is to not go to college... Matter fact. No. Go to college. College was the best four years of my life. Learned a lot, met interesting people. No. My real advice is this... Do not become a content college student/graduate. Prepare yourself for after graduation. Network, research, save up money. Its possible. Don't set yourself up to look back on your college experience and call it a waste. Don't hold a grudge. College gives us the tools to survive the real world. It's up to us to use them wisely.

So my questions for all you DopeHeads (My new nickname for the folks that read this blog) are:

1. Have you ever seen a homeless Asian person? If so, where and when?
2. Does college prepare you for the real worlds?
3. Are you on the verge of becoming homeless?
   

Blogging is for Jerks

And now I'm a jerk too...

So, I have officially joined the Blogosphere, welcome to my world. And with said title, I find myself approaching a certain amount of self-discovery, that, while enlightening, makes me wonder, "why the hell would you make that the title of your first post?"

"Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time."(sigh)

And it did, but here I am, five sentences in, hacking away at my keyboard in a bath towel (special edition Star Wars: Return of the Jedi type, in case you were wondering... you perv). And I'm trying to figure out a way to make this interesting. Not so much interesting for you, the casual observer who may have come by this beautiful expression of words and ideas by chance, but moreso interesting to me. You see, now that I've started pushing this boulder up the mountain, I'd rather not stop (to play video games, watch movies and kiss girls - the order is of no importance) and then have to go all the way back down the mountain to start pushing the same rock again because "pushing rocks sucks". And we all know, pushing rocks CAN suck sometimes, but I think I can do it (push the rock, I mean. Hopefully, I won't suck).




Now, "why the boulder analogy?" you might ask. Well, the answer lies in my stupid compulsion to insert weak, barely-tethered analogies into conversations to distract people from the old subject while I start a new one. You know, like when you're putting on socks. It doesn't really matter if they match, as long as you keep your shoes on.

So, i'm a big fan of 75% of everything that I technically should of grown out of by now. Which basically includes cartoons, candy, my lucky Barry Sanders jersey, and the New York Knicks. I can't easily explain why I still love these things so much. Seeing as they sometimes separate me from good friends, healthy teeth, decent blood circulation, or my obvious sanity (D'Antoni why?!!!!). But, once I like something... Well, it's hard for me to let go of it. Which may also explain why I've had this ridiculous ThunderCats ringtone on my cellular device for the last six years. I know it sounds cool (to me mostly), but believe me, it can get a little awkward talking to adults with someone screaming "HOE!!!!!" outta your back pocket for a half a minute.

Well, that's all I'm going to write for now. I think that was a decent intro (90's hip-hop album quality at least). I promise in the future I'll definitely center these things around one topic, which I guess I could've done in the first place. But I didn't, and you know why I didn't? Well, I'm guessing you forgot what the title of this post was.

Intro time...

Regular Et Cetera

About me: Well, I’m not a philosopher or a comedian, and damn sure not a (fake) revolutionary. I’m just a regular guy. I eat peanut butter jelly sandwiches and watch cartoons yall, so as far as taking advice from me... I mean, would you go listening to somebody who walks around smelling like 3rd grade lunch and Sportin’ Waves hair grease? Um yea, me neither. Good thing for you guys, I stopped using Sportin’ Waves years ago.

But yea, back to the show. So, “why write this blog?”

-"I mean everybody was doing it, and who wants to be the last guy on the block to get a pair of skinny jeans?"

LoL nope.

-"I simply love reading celebrity gossip, and I was hoping I could maybe share some of the juicy stuff with you guys."

Oh HELL no.

-"I want to enlighten the masses, so most of my posts will be centered around messages of “we gotta do better” and “fighting the system.”

Yikes... not that one either.

-“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Yea, that last one sounds about right. So, relax. If you show up on time, you can read about the life and times of Mr. Et Cetera and his not-so-motley crew. And if you’re late, just make fun of all those jerks who showed up early. JERKS! And feel free to add some fist-shaking too, just for good measure.

That’s all I got for yall so far. Except for the other thing I wanted to say...

FAIL

LoL later yall’

Ricochet Grab It

Hey Hey, Hey Hey...smoke weed everyday!

About Me: This is more or less my disclaimer. I'm one of those people who when they say they don't give a fuck, they really don't give a fuck. But the things I do care about, I care deeply. I'm A Scorpio in case you were wondering. I'll be the one on the blog with the foul mouth. I got that Sam Jackson disease and for some reason, I can't stop cussing. But if you decide to read this dope ass blog, you'll see plenty more of that shit!

Now for the real question...why do I blog?

I blog because I'm happy...I blog because I'm free...

Now while that may be a little sac-religious, bare with me. That is not why I blog.

I had a blog when I was a teenager, back when I thought I was deep and going through some shit. But I stopped that when I realized that I had nothing to say. But now, I do, well, not really, but I've seen more shit so I can talk more shit.

I'm really doing this because like my friend Et Cetera said, it seemed like a good idea at the time. And besides it gives me the space to talk about the things I can't say in 140 characters or less (#twitterreference).

So, I must say that the ideas and views expressed in this blog do not necessarily mean anything at all, but hopefully it made you think, or at least laugh. And if not, hey, we're all gonna die eventually, right?

One more ting (Jackie Chan Uncle Voice)

Worst Fucking Movie Ever (Fuck You Terrance Howard)

Oh, lol.

TRoo AlQUEMist:

AbOWT Me: Fuck yeah, I'm a Bruh and Imma say it proud!

But don't worry, I'm not gonna spend all of my time bashing other orgs. However, that may happen from time to time (I mean what the fuck is an IOTA??? lol. jk)

My name actually says a lot about me. It has many layers. One, it says I'm creative. I mean really, Troo AlQueMist is a pretty dope ass name. Two, (obviously) it says I'm a Son of Blood and Thunder. Three, I can be a little cocky... I mean I shouted out my frat and, not only called myself an Alchemist, but a true Alchemist at that.

But what is an alchemist????

I'm glad you asked. An Alchemist is one who works at turning base metals into gold. And Alchemist weren't like wizards or magicians or anything like that. They were regular folks who dedicated their lives to perfecting their craft. Some were successful, some weren't. So essentially an Alchemist is someone who attempts to make something from nothing... A dream chaser, if you will. And that takes us to layer number Four...

Folks, I'm just a brotha who dared to be different, and chase a positive dream. Along the way I get to see some pretty fun and interesting shit and I wanna share with the world. I laugh. I love. I party. But all the while, I'm staying focused.

My homie Reg (He doesn't know it but that's what Imma be calling Regular Et Cetra... How you like the nickname, Reg??? lol) hit me up and was like, "Yo. We gotta get the band back together." No bullshit. That's what he said. Back in school, Reg, Ric (Ricochet Grab It's new nickname) and I used to chill and shoot the shit all the time. And we figure that here we can do it here and have our words transcribed.