Lords and ladies of the ball court.

Geez, Boston is cold, and so are all of its surrounding towns.

I moved back into school today. I mentioned I go to Tufts University in a previous entry-- Tufts isn't actually in Boston, it's in Medford/Somerville. Pretty aiight place, I guess.

Anyway, I really hate jackets-- back home in Jersey, I'd just walk around in hoodies and pray I didn't get sick. But, it's as if up here that won't even fly for a second-- I had on some thick stuff and man. Was I cold.

But yeah, go Tufts. Go Beantown.

Anyway, I should probably talk about stepping this time around.

It's funny, because even before I knew how to step, I knew what it was, at least-- granted, I'm urban/black and come from a semi-predictable upbringing, so I guess it being known to me shouldn't be peculiar. I guess I just assumed most Americans, especially those from like...semi-urban areas, would know what it was? But even here in school, I've had to explain to people what it was, and man. It just seemed weird to me at first.

I know a lot of females-- my family situation is really matriarchal, which I'll have to get to at another time. Even in grammar school, most of my friends were female, and it seemed like they all knew these little kiddy steps. And I picked 'em up and we played double dutch and other girly stuff, or whatever.

I guess that's really it for my step 'history'-- I knew what it was, and I knew like two little beats. But, when I came to Tufts as a prospective freshman in my senior year of high school, we had the Telescope program. I think nowadays it's changed in order to include white people, but when I went, it was geared towards minorities, and most of us were Black and/or Latino, I think. Telescope was like two or three days, and there was this big showcase of all of the minority performance groups on campus. It was pretty amazing. There was Turbo, the breakdancing group, Bhangra, the...Bhangra group, and blah blah. And of course there was Blackout-- actually, one of my hosts for Telescope was one of the captains at the time, and I remember being really impressed. I just remember them all being fit, or tall, or fit and tall[and all black, at the time] and it blew me away. Honestly, Blackout always tries to put on a serious show for Telescope to get the freshmen interested, with like long twenty-minute shows and stuff. So, the long strings of steps, the energy, and the outfits-- they were all dressed in like..SWAT gear; it was tough-- really got my attention. And then I saw them practicing and they looked so serious and stuff. I really didn't think I'd get on-- I think my main hangup was how much shorter I am than everyone else. Especially since they seemed to be about volume and energy, I really didn't think I'd get in.

This was my experience as a high school senior, and pretty much what sold me on Tufts. I mean, at the time, I was pretty sure I was gonna major in Philosophy[which is still..sorta true, I guess], and colleges can't really go wrong with Philosophy, can they? Come on. I didn't really take my college process too seriously-- I just went by how I felt about the campus and my visiting experience.

After I got my acceptance/rejection letters and eventually decided to come to Tufts, one of the first things on my mind was to look out for Blackout tryouts.

I really don't feel like telling the tryout story-- bottomline, I'm really competitive when I want something, but I also get pretty nervous, so it was definitely a battle. But I got on[Yay!], and oh man, that first week sucked. I got to my first practice like an hour late, so I had to catch up to the other new guys. And then I had this bizarre bout of paranoia wherein I thought I was getting kicked off[I SWEAR I heard them say my name] the team, but that turned out to be false. Eventually, I got into the swing of things, I think.

And now, it's a lot of fun.

Nah, I just like stepping-- it's active, and it's on a stage. And I love stages. And I really love stepping. So, there you go.

I was actually trying to make up a step over Winter Break, but I always wind up reusing beats. Once I get it down, though, maybe I'll video it and upload it to youtube.

It's actually one of the biggest reasons I'm excited to be back at Tufts-- I think we have a competition at Cornell coming up, too, and Cornell's really good. I also just miss practice; I feel like I haven't learned anything new for the past two months. Most of the learning went on last year; now that I'm an 'old guy', it's mainly review and remembering stuff.

There's this feeling when I get on stage-- I really do love stages[I used to do acting, and I really miss it, actually]. It's funny, because I'll be nervous as hell right until the show starts. But once it starts, I don't have the time to think about anything else-- it's just precision, energy, angles, keeping up, not speeding up. And more energy and precision. And there's really no feeling like just finishing a show, I think.

Oh man, I'm excited. Especially since some of my closest friends here joined the female step team, Envy, this semester. Sometimes we have performances in the same shows and I get to cheer them on-- for free, which is the best thing-- and vice versa. It's just great now that we all share an interest and whatnot.

Once again, I'm excited. Go Tufts!
[Except that I have class tomorrow. ARGH.]

Knocking down language barriers.

So, I wanted to keep my promise on these next entries being related to the identity keywords I put down in my first entry. This'll be about language.

I'm Black-Honduran, emphasis on Black. My father's a native speaker, so he speaks fluent Spanish. But, we don't have a good relationship, and he left pretty early. So, I got no Spanish at home. That said, my elementary school didn't have language courses either, so my first thirteen to fourteen years were spent without any multilingual ability.

My neighborhood has been becoming more and more Latino since the seventies, according to my mother. It's to the point that by the time I was born, I'd say at least 65% of the residents spoke Spanish. A similar percentage of my friends were also Latino. Anyway, I liked all of my friends-- we'd play baseball at the vacant lot across the street and ride our bikes and play Nintendo and sneak into abandoned buildings. Y'know, normal kid stuff. But, what definitely marred my friendships was that they would start having conversations in Spanish as soon as a big enough group of Spanish-speakers got around. Maybe excluding me wasn't the direct goal, but it was a necessary by-product. It really bothered me-- that they were laughing and having fun in a language I didn't understand. What if they were laughing at me? And, why are they speaking in Spanish anyway, when we all speak English? Etc.

I don't think it characterizes all Black-Latino friendships, but it definitely was a problem for me. So, when I started high school, my first goal was to start learning Spanish. And I did that for four years-- my Spanish is good for school Spanish, I guess. I don't really practice anymore, since I don't take Spanish in college, but every now and then I'll read some Google News Colombia/Cuba, or I'll take out a Spanish book, just to remember words.

I can't really explain why I started Japanese. I think I was being a little dramatic when I was describing my decision to learn Spanish-- it's also just the most common choice made, generally. Also, the other choices were French and Latin-- both of which I had no interest in-- so Spanish was the logical thing to do. But I didn't actually like my Spanish learning experience very much. Freshman year Spanish was fun, if only because the material was relatively easy, but once I moved into a higher class the following year, I started to dislike the class. There was too much work; my teacher was very critical, and I made really simple mistakes all of the time. The feelings just grew stronger my junior and senior year. I think what really intensified everything was my frustration over having so little choice over what to learn-- Spanish class was annoying, and you needed three years of a single language to graduate. So, there'd have been no way to switch into French or Latin, even if I had wanted to.

My sophomore year, though, some kids from Okayama Hakuryo, a high school in Japan, came to my school in a student exchange program. I really thought they were magical beings, like unicorns. I remember having my first conversation with Kohei, who was in some classes with me, and thinking he was just really amazing and funny. Suddenly, I wanted to go to Japan. And to go to Japan, you obviously need to speak Japanese. Honestly, I'm really bad with details, so everything just blurs together. I was a big Dragon Ball Z fan beforehand, so I wouldn't say my interest in anime/manga came as a consequence. But, after they left, I came to the conclusion that the only way to speak Japanese would be to completely Japan-itize my life. No more American music, no more American television. It was Jpop and Jrock all of the time, anime, manga, etc. That lasted at least until my senior year, when I discovered Simple Life.

Anyway, I eventually did manage to go to Japan in my sophomore year of high school, though there was a lot of red tape and funding problems. Essentially, I had to beg a lot of people to buy my plane/train tickets, but 'I can charm the rattle off a rattlesnake.' Being there was definitely one of the best times of my life-- everything was so new to me, and while there's a definite ignorance[black boy in Japan, what?], I really enjoyed everything. Brought a lot of stuff back. And, if anything, it just made me work harder at my Japanese.

Wow, this is a thick entry.

Flash forward to now, and I'm a college sophomore taking Chinese and Japanese. Chinese is and was a complete accident-- I was trying to be ambitious when I was picking classes in my first semester, freshman year. Something about "Intensive Elementary Chinese 1-2" just seemed...really intense, y'know? So, along with Japanese 1 class[since I'd had no formal exposure to Japanese, the department head thought it would be best to start from scratch and pick up basics properly], I did Chinese. Oh man, that class was annoying-- I thought coming from high school, where classes were pretty much every day anyway, there wouldn't be a major difference between taking classes five times a week in high school and six times a week in college. Big mistake. The pace was completely different-- we were apparently learning one year of Chinese in one semester. So, double the pace of a normal Chinese class, which is hard enough as it is. Anyway, I did another intensive Chinese class the following semester, so now that I'm going into my second semester, I can talk about stuff like the Monica Lewinsky scandal and environmental protection in Chinese.[or, supposed to be able to, anyway] Like, what? I can't even talk about that in English.

So, definitely not doing Chinese next semester, as it's only going to get harder. I still want to learn Chinese and all, if only because I've come so far, but I don't think a classroom setting is right for me. Just like with Spanish.

Japanese, though, is a blast. Man, I could do Japanese eight times a day, seven days a week, and I'd still enjoy myself. Maybe. Point is, three times a week is fine and dandy.

And, that is the medium-long version of my Spanish/Japanese/Chinese experience. Overall, I think my paranoia as a child led me to really like languages, or at least breaking down language barriers. Nowadays, I just really like communication and linguistics, which is where my philosophical interest comes in, I guess.

I'd like to master as many languages as possible, German being next hopefully, or Arabic. Or Hindi. Or Hausa.

So many languages, so little time.

What does 'olashorty' mean, anyway? Also, Stomp the Yard.

It occurred to me that the username may seem arbitrary.

When I was little, the superintendent had an assistant, whose name I can't remember at the moment. Phil? Probably not.

Anyway, he was Honduran, and he was cool, and this is back when I knew very little about my father and whatnot. One day, we were talking about my background for some reason[which was unknown to me, on papa's side], and he guessed that I was Honduran, like him. And he was right, as I found out years later-- my father is/was Honduran.

Other than that, he was just a really cool guy. And whenever he saw me, he'd say, 'hola, shorty'. I think I'd laugh or something in response-- I was/am this really goofy kid and I laugh[ed] a lot. So, flash forward some years when I was in 8th grade, after getting my first computer[go Sears raffles!]. I got an internet connection with AOL a bit later, and when it came to making up a username, holashorty was taken.[And, still is taken to this day; IF YOU ARE READING THIS, 'holashorty', I WANT THAT USERNAME.] So, I took olashorty instead.

Pretty much everything I use is olashorty, default.[except my AIM, ironically]

Just in case you were curious.

So, as a bit of daily juice, I saw Stomp the Yard. It was really good, definitely liked it. I knew Chris Brown was gonna die beforehand because someone told me, but damn. He lasted like, what, fifteen minutes? And then, he only had one or two flashbacks. Still, he was cute for all fifteen minutes.

I mean, it was a little too much breakdance for my liking, and some of the girls were kinda freakish. Nice abs, though. I assumed it'd be more step, not that it wasn't, but the breakdancing was definitely...there.

So, a few things I learned from this movie.

1. the lead actor, whatever the hell his name is? hot. I think I may have a new idol; watch out, Jensen Atwood.
2. I definitely need to up the ante on the whole healthy foods and workout program.
3. Get...more hyped before our performances.

Oh, right, I'm on the step team at Tufts U., Blackout. There're some videos on youtube. Anyway, if anything, I guess I'm just not all about this 'brotherhood' stuff all the time, but I don't know why. Maybe I'll work on it.

I think I also decided that I'm gonna make an entry for each of my identity keywords that I put out in my first post. That oughta get some content on here.

"It's OVAH."

Habit on her head.

Yeah, I went to Catholic school.

I've been working on this poem for a while now. SO EXCITED.

I don't really think I'm prone to writer's block, or at least my writing periods seem to last a long time. And I like to think that when I put myself down to a pad and paper[or, a keypad, as the case actually is], I get shit done.

Anyway, the primary problems have been and always will be laziness and being easily distracted. The first faults I'll mention on this blog, and the ones that'll crop up pretty often in some way or another.[I also don't like proofreading, but that'll become evident pretty soon, if not already] Rather than sitting down as I should and tapping into what I want to say, I've just been letting this mess fester. And now it's January 13th and I don't remember what I wanted to say in the first place.

I usually try not to write like this. It's usually a two day window, three days tops.

Well, if that's not the longest prelude ever, here it is:

Citrus Sirius Genesis.

[A certain Burroughs laughed at me
when I told him I'd given up on him halfway
between windstorms in the Village
and acid trips in Brooklyn. He
put his hand on my shoulds,
my should nots, and my shoulders-- sketching
his way along the grooves in my
mahogany musculature.

"I see polgyons and tangerines,
and I can smell the citrus stains from your
inner right thigh. I've never really believed in
eyes speaking to me,
in grand gestures from the great beyond,
but your legs have walked a forgotten path of
stretched condoms and grapefruit,
and both of them are
behind you
now."

I was ashamed to say I had not
read a novel in days, that if I were God,
this world would still be but a mere conception
and there would have been no genesis,
no fall from grace.]

I.

Baldwin always said my life would not
complete itself
unless I went to Paris.
That this city on a river was the gay black paradise,
that the small, insignificant man with whom I identify,
whose many interactions and groups I claim as my own,
had made a leviathan against my consent.

I instead longed for bus rides along the
coasts.

The mixture of hot sauce and
Burberry cologne, the quick appraisals
the "are you downe?"
"are you?"s,
the violence against this
small, insignificant man with whom I
identify.
The razor bumps on your left cheek,
the callouses on the reverse sides of your knuckles,
licking rough lips and pushing knobby knees between my thighs--
oh, the anger. oh,
the gluttony.

I have to have you to myself.

II.

To be continued.
---


To compare, here's something I wrote three years ago? Or something.


Dreadlock Anthem

From bounce to
bed
to cock-blocked.
From Ella Fitzgerald to Ashaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanti,
YOU SHALL HEAR ME.
KISS ME.
OBEY ME
and this nigger nap curling iron curtain [shall fall.]
"These are the end times, and
Revelation Chapter
(3,
2,
1,
4)
FIVE is predicting a golden rapture."

----------------------------------------

"Dreadlocks are actually
prison talk
For DREADFUL SHIT.
Wrapped and folded like marijuana.
Closer to the cranium, to heighten the feeling of
absolute terrorist, born and raised. You're a walking
fender-bender waiting to happen.

Rosie the Riveter has told me
all about your type
in mangled messages on the back of my milk
carton.
You're one of those poster children
for
Communist self-destruction, to rape the welfare
system and breed Boykin-fought
down-low homosexuality in your ratty projects.

I can read you like a tarot card."

Moses split the
Red Sea
that was your mouth. Tides of
plump meat
tore themselves from each other as if
you hadn't talked in decades.
And
you smiled your Rembrandt-Moaning Lisa smile,
barely salivating over your own skin.
Plymouth Rock was dancing in your eyes,
and that papyrus skin of yours was harlem-
shaking and heel-toeing all
over your face.

God's supposed to be in the details,
but his summer beach house is in
your cheekbones. Explains why
you're so beautiful. Nambia's
too deep in your femur, and it made me
wonder why He didn't choose a sleek Swede instead,
to bear his temporary heaven.

Then again, why didn't he choose a
virgin male
to give birth to Christ? Surely that would have been more
miraculous. God

works in mysterious ways.

But maybe the Africans were
God's chosen people,
and maybe the continent is really God's
eternal footprint in the waves,
a sign of actual guidance.

A sign of actual guidance.
Right.

"Tori Amos probably hates you.
Bastardizing Egypt
& more with your
Art History, when you haven't even
listened to Jimi Hendrix yet."

How deliciously you to say so.
I scrubbed my face with my cellphone
to show my elation.

I will not pretend that he does not know cellulite,
but he carries it so well that
fat becomes pride, replicates muscle,
heightens his sexuality, enlightens everyone of his thighs,
of his plump cheeks.[All four.] And I cannot pretend
that I do not love
every Sub-Saharan minute of it all.

I am afraid he is
on a different planet from
me. No
one from Venus can smile with
so many canines all at once. [save maybe
Avril Lavigne?]
And make a tongue look so
brutally hungry.

I bite my lips
EIGHT TIMES[JEHOVAH plus Buddha
equals an Atman totally
holier than thou, honey].
And I leave fossil remains of
this forgotten corn-bred boy on this land
in dried sweat and
passed wind. I killed my ears,
but they pulled a JESUS.

A Taking Back Sunday at eighty
trillion
decibels was not enough
to keep them disco-dead.

For me. For America. For your deliciously anachronistic
dreadlocks.

And that is why I cannot ignore your unveiled panther of
a baritone
as it stalks its way to my eardrum, saying:

"Walaikum us Salaam. Or, shall I say, Wa Alaikum,
you broken brother. Ishmael denies you
of your African soul.

Return to Abraham, and the broken covenant,
baby."

---

Well, certainly one difference is less caps lock.

There's a robbery going on.

Hey.

I was trying to think of how this blog is going to be different from my livejournal, but I could not come up with a sufficient answer. I know the shortest answer is usually the best one, and the shortest thing seems to be that this blog isn't going to be nearly as whiny. But my lj wasn't that whiny either, recently anyway, so...

Rather than saying what this blog will and won't be, I guess I'll just sketch out a few tagwords for my identities and go from there.

Catholic. Black. Poor. Gay. Student. Short. Urban. Independent. Issue-conscious-but-a-bad-activist. Stepper. Language-lover.

In that order.

"Que chevere ser el juggernaut."