You better step your game up.

I awoke, I ate, I talked, I parused the internet, I had a meeting, I got inspired by my friends, I ate, I laughed, I got pissed, I moved on. I'm focused, time to ball, back to when I couldn't miss. Watch me.

Where everybody knows your name.

In Chicago I live in a neighborhood called Logan Square. Its a few miles northwest of downtown. Although its a wonderful place to live due to how quiet it is and the more neighborhood feel. Its relative to say parts of Brooklyn or Pasadena - there still hasn't been much development in the terms of stores and retail. In order to get to a grocery store its at least a train ride away. So the easiest solution for food is the restaraunt down the street. Lula Cafe' is an amazing eatery. Complete with an organic menu, an amazing breakfast and brunch, a lunch menu that provides exactly what you need and a dinner menu that will make you never want to leave. Once a weekend I go in and grab brunch. Served with amazing presentation from the friendly staff - it is a wonderful place to go grab a wonderful bite to eat and relax in good company.


Lula Cafe

Rolling Wit The Homie's

Chilled with a couple of The Brilliance kids today. We were downtown making the rounds on Michigan Ave. A little Louis Vuitton love, Saks Fith, & Bottega Veneta to finish up the quick run around on a wind day in Chicago. Besides me and Virgil building on a project while Ben was shopping for some jeans this is how cats stay inspired - by staying around inspiring people.

Welcome Back

Im going to start here. I will continue soon. But im back like Jordan wearing the 45. Lets get it.

Exhale

It seems like every time I come back to this page a lot of shit has happend. Much has changed but not really at all. I have a lot on my chest to exhale this year. So much I want to do and it seems like getting on the goodfoot is the best way. As its almost the middle of the month and the next thing you know it will be the end.

At this point im frusturated. Frusturated with myself, with other people, females, financial situations just frustrated...period. Which just means I have to improve, I must get stronger, wiser and more committed to this years cause and movement. It is the only way these "things" I forsee will actually find their way to fruition.

Aight gotta go to work.


Spring. Alife 07' footwear. Chicago. Guest list only.

shhhhhhhhhhhh

Bring Some Tree I got A Story to Tell

Something I started writing a few weeks ago and never published...

Again its been a long time coming, it seems in order to really give a good discertation I have to let some life out first. I have to live and learn a little bit. Well I have definitley been doing a lot of living and a lot of learning. Finding ways to move around my stutter steps and through my transitions. It's been hard at times accepting reality for what it is, knowing that in a some ways shapes and forms that I might be missing out on certain things - yet gaining in other areas. More specifically I'm never home anymore - not like that's a good thing. I'm always traveling, but its for work, and its not like im going to Paris - some nights I end up in Moline, Illinois. Left to contemplate and wonder why I have chosen such a path, looking around me and seeing friends make connections and network to further their missions. I guess there is some reason behind the rhyme in the fact that I can now fly to New York and have meetings and make connections with the ease of getting on any public transportation. However I must say that when life test you like this, it allows you to find meaning and purpose. While I was in training for flight school I somewhat found that purpose, or higher meaning. I realized a lot of things that I was investing in held no true weight nor currency. They were all meanningless products built around capitolistic ideals that I wanted to replicate because of my conditioning towards such items and the "hype" they had proved to be. I think through that I found a higher plane - figuratively and literally. With the new found vision being that none of this "hype" was really all that it was hyped up to be. And that these products and companies were all on the same "plane" as me. The only reason they were different was because they were doing, while I became a part of their process furthermore buying their lifestyle. Trying to become is probably the easiest way to distort yourself from reality. We are so conditioned as people to think and act certain ways, from the massive socio-political ways we are learned to the hype of streetwear and the generalization of what is cool. When being hip and cool was and has been always of the individual - it has no genereality. And anytime you try to become anything you fail. Zen-buddhism talks a lot about not doing to do - for example when Jay-Z writes a rhyme it might just flow from him, when he's at his best he's not trying its just doing what it do. He is just a transducer for that process. So my best advice is to let that energy flow through you - don't hold on to it, just let it go...peace

I need to write, I need to sit my black narrow ass down and write...

It's getting cold again, and I don't know if that's what inspires me to want and feel like I need "her" again. But I miss "her" or possibly the idea of "her." It's just nice to have that confidant that Bonnie, someone who compliments as well as understands who you are without words being said. I miss that connection of speechless conversations, saying everything without an utter. I don't know when she'll return, patience a virtue - learned daily.

Furthermore, life is like a game of chess. An analogy that has been made before IM sure, but I am attempting to dissect this theory in my own terms. In chess certain opportunities present themselves, it is up to either player to recognize said opportune chances and capitalize on such experiences. However sometimes mistakes are made as well, opportunities are missed, wrong moves are made and within those moments the lessons begin. Sometimes you have to make great mistakes in order to learn how to win, in order to learn how to change, in order to learn how to see opportunity as it presents itself and better yet how to utilize that opportunity once the chance is given. I must say I have made some mistakes, sometimes I take chances and make the wrong moves and sometimes those lessons are hard knocks but I assume its the only way for me to learn myself and the way this game works. I can only hope and try in the future not to make the same mistake twice, for that is where character is built and tested in the midst of change.

With all that being it said, its damn near winter time. Which means its time to sit in and go to work, to make sure summer 07' will be the illest summer of them all. We have a few projects in the works - C.A.K.E. Recordings, ThinkWell, BIG Like Giants, Fre$h & Proper - all separate yet one.

Here's some pics of a C.A.K.E meeting as well as some good times in-between.











Breakfast with friends, Triple 5 Soul Offices (my boys Ducati sitting next to his desk), Meetings with the C.A.K.E family...It twas a good day.