In-Tacoma.net

Country music and Jason go together like oil and water…however, I think John Rich is on to something with his song “Shutting Detroit Down.” I think this guy really captured the sense of many of the people in our country. You really should take a listen to this song, and even check out the video (stars: Mickey Rourke and Kris Kristofferson). He captures the reality of what is taking place in our nation at this time. We’re going through massive unemployment in some of the cities of our nation that are upwards of 30-40%. While we are bailing companies out to fill their pocket books with their bonuses of hard work…Don’t tell me Chris Dodd didn’t know of these!  This politician received hunderds of thousands of those bailout dollars in campaign contributions.  Imagine that, politics and business intermixed.  Corruption in politics, of course not.  Corruption in these bail outs?  Of course not. 

America’s poorest neighborhoods and cities are crumbling, while we have people in the banking industry and government getting bailed out with BILLIONS. With the multiple bailouts, it’s in the TRILLIONS! We have a statelike Kentucky crumbling under the pressure of the economy, with thousands of people being laid off, while the University of Kentucky hires John Calipari for $4 million dollars a year…WOW…Are our values way out of wack?! Of course…

Now to our city.  Tacoma, we’re not far behind in the unemployment yet, but who is to say that we won’t reach those levels? As my friend Jermz mentioned on his twitter “200 people deep at Worksource.”  When I saw that…all I could think was WOAH!  I know our area is probably around a 10% unemployment rate, but I could see us at 15-20% by the end of the year.

If you take a drive through Hilltop, the city is starting to look like it was in the 1990s…same with parts of downtown.  The economic boom of our downtown core is no longer…you still see some projects in the works, but those new and amazing renovations are going to remain open and vacant…Pretty soon the lovely coverings of plywood will bless the buildings outer cores.

Back to John Rich….He’s a normal guy who I don’t think had any idea of the caliber of song he was writing.  Is it lyrical genious?  Far from it.  But it is mastery in it’s own sense because very few songs out there can capture a sense of millions of people in every facet of society.  Really take a listen to his song….Check the video out when it comes available…Country is not my music…but this song transcends my preferences.

http://www.johnrich.com

I watched the movie “Brown Sugar” about a month ago with my wife last night and it brought back so many memories for me.  Memories of who I was and the paths that I had to chose during critical times in my life.  I never realized how much influence Hip-Hop had on my life and the decisions I made on a day to day basis.  For me, Hip-Hop sparks something somewhere deep in my soul that not much has been able to penetrate (other than my wife and God).    

This love extends past any barrier that I have imagined.  But can this love last?  What happens to this love?  It changed for me.  My love for hip-hop over the last several years to me has become much more authentic.  The more I stepped away from it, the more it pulled me back.  Not back into the person I once was, but back into a deeper love for H.E.R., in a new way. 

I love H.E.R. because she will never judge me, nor will she leave me.  She has shaped me in new ways that I cannot describe.   What is this love?

When thinking of Tacoma, I don’t think of greatness, or prosperity, or beauty. What comes to my mind is potential, loss, failure, constant change, dirty….Why is that? May be it’s my mindset today because I just found out that I will be losing my job in two weeks due to budget and program cuts by those that fund my program. When driving through the city, I don’t feel that buzz any more. I don’t feel that excitement that was there 10 years ago. Are the realities of bubbles bursting setting in?

I just think that our city is filled with people that are just lost. Some because they have just lost their way on the map, some because they have taken a wrong turn and just haven’t left…others because they choose to be lost and Tacoma just found them.

Tacoma, I love you, I have grown to love you as a living, breathing entity, even though you are ugly.

After a long conversation with an OG from the Hill today about Tacoma in the late 80s and early 90s, he brought up Ice Cube. One of my all time favorite MCs, and founding members of NWA. I guess Ice Cube made a visit to the Hilltop in 1989 to see what all the talk about Tacoma was. This OG described that Ice Cube wanted to see how “Real” Tacoma was and found out that it was a lot harder than he thought. He immediately got beat down from the hoods on the Hill. I’m not one to start any Internet rumor, but this OG is from the block and has no real reason to lie. Can someone help me sort this one out!