got my act together and filmed for that anti-drug psa for youth speaks and expressed mailed it to santa monica. if all goes well, it's a free trip to la. drank pepsi with jim bean at barney's (ironically after filming for the psa...) walked around aimlessly drinking said alcoholic beverage. saw people camping out on the streets for tomorrow's bill clinton book signing at cody's on telegraph. saw some horribly titled dvd's at rasputin. ate donuts. thought about life. all the aforementioned occured with the thong. he rules.

start teaching tomorrow. 20 kids all to myself (step step side to side round and round...)

saw Fahrenheit 9/11 - very good, i'll probably see it again soon, i'm ecstatic that it's #1 at the box office, despite the fact it was in 1/3 of the theatres as the other 9 films in the top 10, that's amazing!....saw The Corporation as well, which is long as fuck (two and a half hours sitting in cramped chairs in a full packed theatre with no a/c), but you can't go wrong with Chomsky doing commentary....also saw Napoleon Dynamite, which is utterly hilarious. comedy at its finest!

explored Concord on Saturday with my old neighbor/co-op roomie, Pernia. she showed me around her hometown, and told me her family's story - an afghan family that immigrated to the united states during the soviet civil war in afghanistan, and basically lived the rags to riches american dream. we went to the big mall in Concord and stealing good hiphop magazines (xlr8r) from stupid Hollister (hell on earth) was cool. we snuck into Concord Pavillion and stood on the stage like rockstars. the suburbs are so similar everywhere, just sparse housing, gated communities, shitty high schools, shopping malls, and white people. reminded me of La Verne back in so cal.

and i cut my hair...finally

Dizzee Rascal "Brand New Day" (i looooooove this song, it dethroned jadakiss "why")

From Oakland, CA (OAK) to Long Beach, CA (LGB)
Thursday, 08 Jul 04
Depart Oakland, CA (OAK) at 8:05 pm
Arrive in Long Beach, CA (LGB) at 9:25 pm

From Long Beach, CA (LGB) to Oakland, CA (OAK)
Monday, 12 Jul 04
Depart Long Beach, CA (LGB) at 7:40 pm
Arrive in Oakland, CA (OAK) at 9:00 pm

"All the suburbs are pretty much the same. The only difference is that you can call the one you're from your own" - the infamous Kevin Arnold

my father is a professor of political science and latin american history at cal poly pomona. for the past few years he runs a yearly cuba exchange program, where kids from cal poly go with him to cuba, take classes, dance, and basically immerse themselves in a country deemed a "terrorist cell" by the united states government. he took me with him in the summer of 2001, at the ripe ol age of 16, and it changed my life. the previous summer, we went to puerto rico, where i met my biological grandmother for the first and what would ultimately be the last time when i was 15. i fell in love with her those 2 weeks i spent sleeping in a bed with the Caribbean cockroaches peaking of the windows with their attentae, and the mice scuttling across the floor, sharing a bed with my big ol father. in san juan, i fell in love with a 17 year old girl named karla, who had just gotten back from rehab in nicaragua; she had already overdosed twice by the age of 15. at the age of 15, staring into her 17 year old eyes was the greatest feeling ever. i loved her so much, i didn't even kiss her - it would've been too much. i still have yet to match that feeling of lying on her stomach eating food we cooked for each other, and just not saying a damn word. my dad could totally see that in my eyes..

on those 2 summer trips, those were the moments i felt utterly close to my father. he would just place his arm around me, laugh that hearty james-earl-jones-type-laugh, and skratch my knappy ass head.

now, i'm halfway done through college. working a day job with two internships. summer school poetry teacher. history major, creative writing minor.

and it's the end of june. my dad is packing for cuba right now, taking another class of eager young people out to Castro country. i know he's stressing out over all the stuff he'll have to deal with in the next few weeks.

and in his voice, i can just hear the sorrow. he misses me. i miss him dearly. i call home everyday, but speak solely to my mother cuz it's too hard to talk to him. we're too much alike. both completely pessimistic. scared to take the first step toward anything that might be considered new or outside our own selfish comfort zones of being quiet people who would rather sit at home and listen to music and discuss post-1898 U.S foreign policy in the devolopment of Latin American countries than meet new people or go to a club. maybe that's why i never pursue relationships with women i deeply care for, because i fear not the rejection, but anything different than being single and living my life according to my own schedule and ideals. i become quiet, don't call back, and burn another bridge to a girl i deeply care(d) for. i'm hostile to change. maybe that's why i'm scared to tell my dad how much i love him - that everytime i hear his voice, i step outside of my comfort zone. that selfish zone. the zone he and i both possess. by telling him how i really feel, i'm not just showing him my feeling, but i'm stepping outside of my own secure comfort zone, and loooking back at myself, dead in the face, and saying "it's ok. change is not a bad thing."

and it's hard to love a person who is so similar to you. especially when you think that those similarities are your most negative qualities.

i used to blame my father for my insecurities, for being so shy, for being so damn quiet and just scared/timid around new people or situations that require me to change my personality or even grow as a person.

but after all that's happened this year, and all the change that has occured for the better in these past 6 months, i realized that change is a great thing. and i also realized a lot of my best qualities lie in the fact that i recognize my negative qualities and am trying to overcome them.

and now, it's getting easier to tell my dad, "i love you. i miss you. i'll see you soon"

Jadakiss "Why" featuring Anthony Hamilton

really really feeling this song right now. anthony's chorus sounds so damn good.

that is all :)

you are mine next week....hopefully.

you are way too funny.

"I got busted by the Feds for busting them on the concocted crash of Flight 500" - random lady, center and shattuck, this afternoon.

i'm happy to see someone smile from my advice over a drink in the early afternoon. i only wish i could listen to my own sometimes. i'm getting better though. that's good, right?

Death Cab for Cutie "President of What?"

i quit the oakland slam team cuz i'm very much burnt out on the whole poetry slam scene right now.

after being on 2 national slam teams, and after winning national championships with both of those teams, it's time to take a break, work the three jobs i already have for the summer, and just read, write, and re-evaluate everything right now. saturday night i spazzed out and vented to geoff, emily, and thong and they all understood. though it's very tempting to stay, i know i'll be there next year, stronger than ever.

we did the battle of the bay in Palo Alto (east palo alto = ghetto, cross the bridge into palo alto = the whitest and shittiest town in america), where san jose got 1st and oakland got 2nd, followed by team Palo Alto and then the Spiral Bound Monterey team. it was fun. Paradox killed it. Eric Sanchez suprised the shit outta me.

it's almost the end of june. i won't be back in los angeles till july 30-31st, only ONE day for a poetry gig with youth speaks, and i probably won't even see my family...very homesick right now. can't go home cuz of lack of $$$$$. family supposed to head up here to berkeley 4th of july weekend, which is coo, but i miss the shitty suburbs that i call The Picket Fence Holocaust - the suv's, the white girls with bleached hair, the sk8er jock assholes, the pro-war rallies, the apathy, the anger - i oddly miss it all.

"I am living in a land where this education teaches me to erase my mother's memories and write them over with the words of dry, white professors" - Ishle Yi Park "Cheju Do Dreams"

i watched the original "Sweet Sweetback's Badassss Song" on dvd the other night - that is some crazy abstract blaxploitation shit. Martin Van Peebles is a madman. He got the clap while filming the movie!!!!! Now I want to see his son do "Badassss."

michael moore "farenheit 9/11", this friday....AND bill clinton's autobio this Tuesday. true, he was fucked up in his own right, but i stil respect clinton as a man, on some MacNamara shit.

Me: Hey, I'm Jose
Her: Ooooo, can i touch your hair?
Me: Wuht?
Her: (grabs and pulls my knaps)
Me: WTF!?!?!
Her: hehehehe
Me: yo, be cool...so how ya doin?
Her: (sips beer and walks away)
Me: WTF!>?!?!! (stands there with a NewCastle and a headache from her pulling my hair)

being involved with youth speaks in the mission and Y.E.S in oakland and the oakland slam team and working at Library Copy Service is awesome cuz i get to be around brown/black people ALL DAY. a far cry from the enviornment of UC Berkeley during the school year.

this is getting crazy, what Chalmers Johnson would call "Blowback".

songs of the moment:
Anthony Hamilton "Comin From Where I'm From"
Erykah Badu "Appletree"

i write better Blog entries when drunk - see previous :)

it's 3:09am, and i'm fuckin tired but dammit, might as well write this:

i am the official 2004 grand slam champion of oakland. thus, i made the team (myself, lucky 7, ise lyfe, and kenyata). the slam was funny. the really cute host was as drunk as she was hoTTTT, so she was plastered. the whole community was there, and was very supportive, especially jason bayani, trenchard, and jamie kennedy...and THE THONG! haha.

so i was late to the slam...really late. i missed the drawing, so bayani had to draw for me - luckily drew last - and the only reason i was late was cuz i was eating really good food and drinking really good whisky with the trench at emily kagan's house, plus the 10 minute delay for the Fremont train. so i made it to the slam as it was already in progress. did 3 rounds, felt pretty good about it...very happy to rep for Oakland, cuz their slams are like block party bbq's and shit, very chill, very simple and full of nice kind brown/black people.

ego boost: i am the first person to win both a national youth and college championship in one year, and now i am the first person to ever be on a youth, college, and adult team all in the same season.

and i'm tipsy right now, hence the inflated ego. ah, that victory wine mixed with that whisky...

...which leads me to the fact that i'm calling in sick tomorrow to work. that's my personal treat to myself - calling in "sick". I plan on cashing my check, eating unhealthy pizza, buying more old man clothes, and going to work at Youth Speaks briefly, and maybe even seeing "Dodgeball" or maybe "The Corporation"

and i'm really blabbering right now cuz of this buzz. and i know it's lame to talk about having a buzz, but fuck it...like i wasn't lame already.

sorry about tonight's ego, it'll be smashed to pieces tomorrow probably. things tend to work in cycles. karma.

cha bra.

"i am building a birdhouse" hahahahaahhahhahah

the new roots song!!! :::::: kafjal;kfjaskfjadf don't say nutin just kdfja;lkfjasklfjasdkfjsda and don't say nutin hahhahaha

i'm hilarious and tipsy like Jkwon minus the fucked up grill

hipster girls make me maDD cuz i'm attracted to them yet know i shouldn't be cuz they're all so lame and hung up on un-cool fashion, yadadadadad

if Moses was a b-boy he'd have a signature flair called "The Red River Rock the Block". that'd be awesome (strikes b-boy pose).

i got the new mos def ep,,,,downloaded it actually.

"all in love is fair" - stevie wonder

The Album Leaf "One Day I'll Be on Time" - really really good album, very happy i bought it yesterday. it's a one man band (Jimmy Lavalle from the sandiego/tijuana band Tristeza, who suprisingly used to play in Swing Kids and The Locust [crazy hardcore/punk/inaudibly-genius bands]), kinda ambient-poppy music with a beat, lots of piano and keys, just good music to read to (almost done with Bukowski's "Post Office" and about to start Tom Robbins "Jitterbug Perfume"). They have a new album coming out on Sub Pop on june 22, haven't heard anything from it, but yea "one day..." is their older album from 2001. The songs "story board" and "vermillion" make me smile like Billups accepting the MVP award :)

offense wins games, defense wins championships.

your 2004 san francisco slam team:

Adriel Luis (Ill-Literacy)
Liz Green (killed it...originally from the midwest)
Jason Mutafuggin Bayani (Proletariat Bronze)
Geoff Trenchard (Suicide Kings)
Jimmy Tran (CAL SLAM WHAT!!!!)

one hell of a slam last night at studio z, across the street from slim's. 21+ venue, but we all got snuck in. so nice seeing all the ol davis homeys, all us young poets blendin with the adult poets was terrific. meeting dawn saylor was coo too. word.

hopefully, i'll see ya'll in st.louis in august and we can all drink Pimp Juice with Nelly.

"What the hell can a guy nineteen years old write about? His childhood? Huh? Who wants to hear about the childhood when you're that close to it? So, I had to go out and wait until something happened inside of me. There was no way I could kid myself that I was ready to write something down. And I wasn't...I was empty" - Charles Bukowski.

'fresh bed of lettuce with cruttons' - haha, dead prez is hilarious and shitty, but i still listen to them. why?

the black women at my work schedule their hair appointments around funerals they have to attend in Oakland. Castlemont School in the O gets shot up, local media. Columbine and schools in San Diego county get shot up, national attention. Same tragedies, different spotlights.

Madlib is an amazing producer, probably the best in underground hiphop today [along with rjd2, scott herren (prefuse 73/savath and savalas), el-p (the "high water" album is crazy), 9th wonder, JayDee, dj shadow, and Ant]. here's the text and video of an interview with him in Brazil, dude's crazy.

this summer is a turning point; for better or for worse.

i can feel it.

meraj and i on the complete destruction of the Lakers tonight, courtesy of the Detroit Pistons::

caenTAE: i'm so happy
caenTAE: they fuckin obliterated them
BombardmentSoc: jesus, i know. i think somebody told the lakers that rebounding was illegal
caenTAE: hahaha
BombardmentSoc: and god knows, kobe didnt want to commit anymore crimes
caenTAE: ooooooooooooo

david cross is a funny man.

seeing people i never would've met without spoken word for the first time in a few months feels really really good....i wish i could transport all my friends and family from LA onto one single block in a nice area of Berkeley so we could all be together, away from the Inland Empire.

Go see this movie this weekend, The Corporation

"I don't know me and
You don't know you
So we fit so good together
'Cause I knew you like I knew myself"
- Ugly Casanova "Barnacles"

a whole lot to think about and not a lot to say.

rjd2 "exotic talk" - amazing stuff.

cop'd some new used cd's today:
Yesterday's New Quintet "Angles Without Edges" (anything produced by Madlib or on Stones Throw Records is a good investment)
and the solo Gift of Gab cd "4th Dimensional Rocketships Going up" (i'm missing Chief Xcel and his production/skratches, but the song "Way of the Light" is sooooo ill, it's been on repeat on the headphones all day).

goddamn kobe and his overtime magic.

pistons bitchslapped the lakers - 1 down, 3 to go.

today was great. i did absolutely nothing but walk around berkeley with friends and buy clothes. lazy sunday afternoons are the greatest.

andrea doesn't remember vomiting in my room, but left a post-it on my door to apologize.

music of the moment: Company Flow "Funcrusher Plus"

"tequila you are the end of me!...jesus christ superstar" - andrea

ah, she was drunk last night. the 3rd floor of our lovely co-op reaked of regurgitated Gordo's burritos. a nice saturday night, despite a shitty snl.

berkeley poetry festivel - ehhh; only like 30 heads stuck around, and they were all your kinda fake-liberal-granola-eating-birkenstock-wearing motherfuckers. Youth Speaks represented though. Amaka, Bobby Gordon, myself, and Sarah did our pieces, and they were well received, so yea for us, kinda cool performing in MLK park.

my mom sent me the double-cd of Nina Simone's greatest hits, the song "In the Dark" is amazing.....also saw "Ghost World" for the first time, and it reminded me of life in the 'burbs. Scarlet Johanson, marry me.

"The illustrations for this book were murky photographs of several white women giving blow jobs to the same black man, who, for some reason, wore a Mexican sombrero" - Kurt Vonnegut "Breakfast of Champions"

Pernia sent me a letter that made me smile. I need to visit her, Freddie, and Kristi soon.

very excited about "Fahrenheit 9/11" coming out JUNE 25th! nationwide! with 2 major distributors! Here's the trailer.

game 1 of the nba finals tonight. this is such an old school finals - lakers v. pistons - ahhh so excited, reminds me of the days of Rodman, Lambier, Thomas, and Dumars. let the Pistons domination begin.

a busy busy week indeed.

went to the starry plough on wednesday and saw Rupert Estanislao kill it with his new piece "Nuestra Sangre", drank for the first time in a while with the Trench, and observed.

my job = 9am-1pm everyday, uc berkeley library copy services. i basically get paid to drink Hawaiian Punch in the AM and read Kurt Vonnegut. splendid.

thursday, had my first day as an intern at Youth Speaks. Worked with Paul Flores, who's going on tour to Florida pretty soon - he actually did a slam feature at El Taco Nazo, this big local business in Pomona and throughotu all of the 909, where we all used to see our favorite lil local ska/emo/punk/shitty bands plays (remember Organic? that one song with the chorus, "That's what I'm talking 'bout!" genius). Working in the Mission district in San Francisco is interesting as fuck...the youth speaks office is so quiet, filled with books and art, and then the minute you step outside, it's utter madness; crazy homeless people, loud ass Banda music and just insanity. I like it though, it feels like Broadway in Los Angeles or 116th in Harlem....or Mission Blvd in Pomona (what!). After YS, went to Tourette's Without Regrets - probably the best one I've ever seen. Missed Mike McGee featuring cuz i had to catch the last BART to Berkeley to wake up for work today. But yeah, a busy day - left the house at 9am, didn't get back till 1am.

check out Anthony R. Miller's blog, he's on tour right now around the country on his first national spoken word tour. he rules. one time, he gave me a peeled off Budweiser label and said in a drunken fury, "Keep this kid, it'll be worth milliions". awesomesauce.

And Paradox gave me some of the best advice I have ever heard in my life.

Tomorrow/Saturday: come to the Berkeley Poetry Festivel, 2-4pm a dope adult slam, and from 4-5ish Youth Speaks poets are performing (i'll be spittin a lil something) so yeah, it's all free and it's at Provo Park (aka Civic Center Park) right near the Berkeley Farmer's Market and Berkeley High School.

Tonight: finally seeing "Super Size Me" with my sis in frisco. the "Bukwoski: BOrn into this" movie was great, i'm very eager to see "The Corporation" with Zinn and Chomsky in July...ah, so nice to live so close to independent movie theatres.

and i will leave you with the ever-popular, amazingly enternaining, and just straight out genius Emo Bush Game. (music includes Sparta and Boy Sets Fire)