Bealz, Prince Of The SouthSide

Introducing: Thoughts and Songs From The Cleveland Avenue Warriors  https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9XSmJDqYdtb

*find this and much more in my latest release, The Wayward Home For Retired Superheroes And More Astonishing Tales From The Hood https://www.amazon.com/Wayward-Home-Retired-Superheroes-Astonishing/dp/B0B2TW68BH/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=  “Good morning, Jan! I'm glad I could catch you before you got out on your errands today. Did you hear that I was throwin' my ol' hat in the ring? “Yes, honey, I decided to give those good ol' boys a run for their money. “Time enough we had some common sense and a woman's touch in office, don't you think? “Now, I won't pressure you. Not now. We're still three months out for the vote. But I would love for you to spend a little time before then considering me for your Mayor. “First thing I'm gonna do is get a fundraiser together to bring the Community Garden in the Square back to life. Place is just a shame now. An eyesore, what with all those angry kids and drifters and druggies

  BATTERED: a movie review After its most violent and gut-wrenching opening scene, Battered, Halle Berry's Netflix -starring, directorial debut, settles into the mundanity of its title characters subsistence. Living a haunted, ghost's shell of a life, Jackie Justice, a former UFC prospect, reacts violently to the creepy intrusion of a voyeuristic, Succession -level rich kid, who apparently has a thing about covertly filming her as she changes from her maid's uniform into her own clothing. This repeated intrusion triggers a violent exchange, leading on to a series of catastrophic events which culminates in the unexpected arrival of her long estranged child, a traumatized 6-year old, mute with shock after watching his father, an undercover police officer, get violently murdered. That's a lot to process, right? Well, this is just the start of a long and often painful ride that lasts through two hours of bruises, blood, cruelty and, somewhere along the way, a little bit

  THE HARDER THEY FALL Westerns tend to draw their lines early on, establishing the character arcs of its White Hats and Black Hats in the first act. We know who the good guy is. He's gonna carry top billing. He's gonna be the star, gunning down some damn dirty injun or State's Rights hating scum. My Daddy watched Westerns. Loved them. He came home from work in the evening and immediately appropriated the television; turning it to M.A.S.H., the evening news and then, finally, Gunsmoke, before the prime time shows started up. This was done ritualistically. It made all of the kids scatter, find a corner to explore our own imaginations rather than subjecting ourselves to the boredom associated with that block of television programming. The Harder They Fall established its White Hats and Black Hats in its opening scene, as well. As the film progressed, however, it seemed more of a generational delineation. Old Heads vs the New. Delroy, Idris, Regina, the leaders of t

  CHAPPELLE PUT ON A SHOW Some of Dave Chappelle's comedy makes me cringe. It can sometimes be very difficult to hear, to sit through objectively. I've admittedly had to watch some of his controversially critiqued Netflix comedy specials more than once in order to parse through the nuance; the purpose; the intent. When his most vociferous critics and detractors first took issue with the big corporation's 'so-called' negligence, in light of his recent release, 'The Closer', it left me with much to think about, but probably not what his detractors expected. The fact is, as a black man living in the heart of America's racial animus, someone who has some historic awareness relating to the confluence of the Civil Rights Movement and its intentional and successful co-opting by the LGBQT+ Movement(which, in my opinion, wasn't to be negatively criticized, but serves as proof positive that the tactics employed by the likes of Dr. M. L. King Jr could, too,

It usually starts out as a feeling, an elusive, emotional sense of anxiety, the urge to get out and away, to break free from some small town or some mid-sized town or even the stifling confines of a couple big city blocks, where the faces blur into familiarity and the expectations for something new and different are bleak. Songs for the Cleveland Avenue Warriors , a poem presented in 10 parts(from the recently released collection, Songs For The Cleveland Avenue Warriors: poems from the past, present and future , available from creativeonionpress.com ), embodies this sense of impending pressure.  It builds. It grows. It finally settles in, like a slowly descending storm front, and smothers; this adolescent urge to get up and go, to move around, to 'walk about'. It hits hardest for the dreamers, those who know that there is so much more to know, who connect the dots that lead out from their doorstep and stretches on out and soon becomes entwined with global politics, beholden