Deja Vu Again: Have To Blog Myself To Stop Unjust Eviction-to-Homeless Pressure

Why does this keep happening to me?
Twice in two years in South Carolina? Coincidence? I think NOT.

Minding my own business and trying to leverage my newfound senior citizen status by writing letters, asking for interstate relocation assistance since the begging of this year, I am suddenly blindsided by the heretofore friendly apartment Manager/Landlord, three weeks ago, who apparently wants to kick me out! No reason given and apparently, they can DO this here in South Carolina?? My rent is up-to-date and never late; I’ve been a concerned citizen tenant and the guy spoke to liking me to give him a “heads-up” on anything that needed to be addressed (and boy, there were many in the past 22 months, including a deranged young man who tried to Bogart himself into my crib one Sunday night back in July of 2017!). It is a dysfunctional “community”, to my worldly, educated eyes and I will not miss it. However, to be given the bum’s rush before I have a security deposit in hand and a place to land?…

Hmmm, to me, a black American man, it seems like a remnant from the Jim Crow era is afoot; one that needs to be updated by eradication in South Carolina!
Some slow state; resistant to eradicate,
while latent lost labor legacy percolates
To this very day.
Therefore, I can’t delay

Any longer, when the current landlord is unreasonable and done a “180” on me.
I did nothing wrong to invite this. Time is of the essence with kick-out deadline looming on April 1, 2019. Too old, seasoned and good of a man to have to go out like this. Too bad I always seem to never have received the compensation my talents deserved, because if I had, nobody would be able to try and “handle” me like this now. No amount is too small.
Thank you.

**PickHit: Thanks to the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission, two local Councilmen and their Admin Assistants and The Urban League of Charleston I was able to buy additional time to move more comfortably. The new state I am in new is very strange and substandard in many ways, so South Carolina may see me again – permanently – if my First Time Home Buyer campaign at www.HomeFundIt.com is successful. [October, 2019]

Secure Me From Living In A Car – Never Thought I’d Blog Myself…

SINCE November of 2009, when I began this literary exercise at the behest of a college buddy, I have been able to opine in relative obscurity, save when one would search the “About” page and as “obscure” as one can be on the worldwide web. That is about to change with this post. Life is a race against time and “time” always wins in the end.

Six months ago, in the late summer of 2016, as I was being “downsized” or forced out of the latest copier sales “telemarketing” gig by one small partner at NY Digital Products, I accepted an offer to work for what I thought was the company who helped me self publish my three books since 2010, CreateSpace in Charleston, South Carolina. By the time I arrived in Charleston, they switched me to the Kindle “ebook” training platform – that was the first bad omen.Fast-forward to Thanksgiving, 2016 when I was still living “Airbnb-style”, from host-to host, unable to find suitable and affordable housing in a nice, diverse neighborhood as I had in Nashville, Tennessee in the 2000s, I ended-up in a trailer park in Goose Creek, South Carolina and almost had a “Deliverance” (classic movie starring Burt Reynolds) experience until Airbnb saved the day and suggested several potential hosts, one of whom became the lady who felt my frustration and pain at having to move from place-to-place for many months and took me in. I paid her $600/month through the winter since November 25, 2016 for the room (shown on this profile). In February, 2017, her estranged husband returned to the house and the vibe changed gradually until he made it clear recently that the lady was not the owner of the house, HE is and he wanted to throw me out as I had finally been offered two jobs to get away from the Amazon Kindle gig which, unfortunately for me, did not work out, but left me behind on the money I was paying to his wife by five hundred, which he wanted immediately or I had to leave by force. The lady worked with me and I was giving her partial payments to catch up. He wanted “all or nothing” and it came to a head on Sunday, April 3, 2017 when he threatened to “remove [me]” and upon the advice of my Attorney, I called the police, who came and told him that “it doesn’t work like that”, he’d have to begin eviction proceedings. I do not want that outcome nor this drama and yet, nobody seems to be able to help me with a stable and consistent salaried job nor loan yet!! This is why I turn to my tried and true crowdfinding. I want to get out by April 30 so I can establish a base from which I can grow income from my creative callings and eventually apply for Social Security retirement. However, I cannot be forced into the streets and I want to give the lady who had stood by my side despite her husband, some money on my way to better days.
“Just last night she said about her husband, “Soon he’s going to put his foot down and you have to go…” I have no place to “GO”… [I remember that moment with hidden horror – 11.22.2017]
I need your donation today and no amount is too small. I can reward you with complimentary copies of my three books or an autographed DJ picture from my radio days. Maybe you can conjure a “perk” from me that would inspire you to donate massively? Just let me know. THIS…is an emergency. These are VERY nervous times for me. Please help.
Donate here Please Help Secure Me From Having to Try To Live In My Car

May all of your trails be smooth and full of the music you love,
“Cheetah” Naphtali Jimi B

PickkHiTT: I never thought that I would have to blog myself to stay solvent and off of the streets. Life’s a Bitch…

check out my musik-only blog at https://achilliadsmyvinylrecordshoppe.wordpress.com/

Remorse (Caveat emptor)

Once upon a time a chick,
That first one who dumped me;
Suddenly without telling me
Her thoughts or reasons;
I must have been about sixteen years old.
A harbinger of painful relationships to come.
Shit!!
A scenario I now know,
Preparing me.
For my life of dating females;
That is just “what they DO”!
Especially these glamor queens
I tend to become attracted to –
I like to awaken with someone,
Vaguely similar to the star
I went to sleep with.
Aww, Fuck!!

Once, without remorse,
A babe said through the courts
I was the sperm donor daddy of her baby.
Our fleeting affair was just two weeks!
They wanted to shackle my financial rest of life.
Ridiculous!!!
Scheming Hussy!

I’ve always been a late bloomer to the dance;
Playing it off “cool” in the face of strife.
Their part-time Casanova fantasy I guess,
It is only now that I truly comprehend romance.
I think.
Yet it still hurts and often now,
The USA does it government “legally”.
I wonder if I called her,
That ex of the exes,
Could it still work?
What??? Slap me,
I must be crazy!

Why can’t I get it without remorse?
They are just wired differently;
Not the infatuation or her this or that being enamored,
I always think the next one will be different,
In the way the hormones affect her.
Unique mentalities always make the lady feel good.
I acquiesce to her desires;
They spit upon me and fart unabashedly.
Otherwise she has the real fire hose,
For extinguishing “our” love’s desires.
Dumbass(me)!!

Reading an old acquaintance’s appeal from decades back,
Stumbled upon it rummaging and tossing stuff;
I feel like I could have an old man heart attack!
She asked me to be ‘big hearted’;
Amusingly tried to use a ‘ten-dollar word’,
One that I’d used on her.
I could not extend that forgiveness then;
Now I know to let it go.
Back then I was hurt and angry;
Less mature a late bloomer.
Don’t misconstrue – I do NOT forget!
Her appeal chance a snowball in hell.
Now fifteen years hence in my sage,
I notice a newly better-minded me.
Perhaps rid of those financial consequentialies,
Provides a different reaction;
Could have improved my current situation?
We will never know.
“Arrrgh!!”

Would have maybe given “three” a chance.
Instead of “ruining” three including me,
As I said to keep myself perceptively “free”.
Yet Monday A.M. QB,
I never aspired to be;
Too many random variables like hypocrisy.
I now tearfully purge the insensitivity.
Racking my brain,
Writhing in physical pain;
The bodily throws of an Edgar Allen Poe story!
Nobody knows except the Heavenly Father and my actions!
Can I get one back in my life again?
Can I not die alone?
Will I have her to rub my back late at night?
Then to cuddle and sleep tight.
Would love to playfully wrestle like Naphtali’s name means,
With regularity and without having to fight.
Or just Kill me NOW, God!!

Compelled, I can move on-principle!
Seemingly thousands of women memories flood my brain;
Situations pass at racecar pace.
Which one was right?
Fifty-nine prognostications quickly out of sight.
Many were wrong.
Some just thrilled to show me their thongs.
No way is this probably the final analysis,
But in six months sixty,
I’ll earnestly apply lessons from this present,
Or live lonely forward until my death;
A similar scenario to dialysis.
(Heavenly Father says, “this one, your ‘Ukrainian’…is different”!!!)

Oh, that letter ended up here:

My Five Worlds – Life in my Galaxy

My Five Worlds

As I carried-out assigned Handyman tasks today I realized another of my blessings to be thankful for and acknowledge here as 2011 rapidly heads into our collective and personal histories. I am like the planet Jupiter with its many moons, even though my birth planet is Saturn, because I have five worlds that orbit me as satellites. Maybe you can relate to my universe or not; “whateva” please comment below if my description moves you to! My worlds are: 

1 – Bachelor World: Where I’ve lived daily when not around other people and which is progressively irritating between my ears as an increasingly lonely, middle-aged man. I know how much “talent” I have, still do not “look [my] age and remember many things others do not, which makes them “amazed” at me. Right. This is the place of my principles; the jokes I tell myself which only I “get”; it is deciding to sleep-in or get up and go to the church on Sunday and cooking great meals that I wish I could share with one special person. It is where my frustrations, independence, insecurities, poetry and secret anger lives. It is the humidor of my greatest wealth to-date: the music of my life – the music in my mind that plays randomly, daily depending upon which curve ball life-in-general is throwing to me at the moment, from Classical to Solid Gold Oldies.

2 -Diverse World: This could also be called “the world in which many Black American people live in” because by-nature and because we were born in the mostly Caucasian USA, we were once (if you were born before let’s say the year 2000) considered largely marginal to the American society as a whole. However, my Diverse World is better than many because I have intelligence, education and was raised kind-of “middle class” by my parents. Yes, I am proudly one of the Baby Boomers! I had the dual blessing of learning to use correct English and learning to break-it-off Ebonics-style when necessary! In other words, in this world, “white” Americans are largely as comfortable around me as I am around them (once some of them they get over their pre-programmed initial ‘upon site’ stereotypes and hear me speak) in most instances. The ones who do not, are not part of “Diverse World”, obviously, yet I am fully aware of them and their presence if they get within earshot. It is the world I get to experience when I do handyman work at better-to-do-than myself clients’ homes; they trust me. If you are a Mexican maid or worker for “white” Americans, you might understand my “Diverse World”. In this world, the music is all over the place and “Dance” music, the descendant of “Disco” is accepted. All of my “Gay” friends live here as well.

3 -Intercultural World: My favorite place to be and largely because my fiancee, Inna, responded to my repeated attempts to gain access to it in recent years and found me! Intercultural World is my future of travel, married life with Inna and happy, loving discovery of what I should have explored many years ago. We Black Americans of my ilk, who were not forced to travel overseas because of wars were not actively encouraged to escape our nation’s borders, and that is the current sadness and frustration of Intercultural World for me. It took an inordinate amount of time to get my first U.S.A. Passport precisely and partly because I had a past without international travel and some of the wrong kind of socio-government “baggage” a$$ociated with it. Intercultural World is the world of “Cheetah”, Inna’s loving nickname for me. I like it! Other inhabitants of Intercultural World are Inna’s elderly parents, her grown-up son from her previous marriage and other non-English speakers here in the States who I interact with even though I know just a few words of their languages! Once I finally go to see Inna in Ukraine and return, I hope you will benefit from my new experiences and broadened mind in this space. 

4.Black World: This is the place that I believe many of the people who look like me, many of whom I have known for the longest period of time in my life inhabit. Many of my high school and college friends/acquaintances live here. They still mostly listen to Rhythm & Blues music which I really cannot fathom much anymore unless I’m in the mood for some “O’Jays” or sharing with Nina some stuff on You Tube. I visit there when I go to work at the Black newspaper I work for, and now this dynamic is quite the contrast-yet-similar to the “old days”. This satellite has its roots back when we protested for equal civil rights in-order to have equal access to American society. Way back it was “colored World”, then “Negro World”… Sadly, in Black World, I see many of my “Brothas & Sistas” missed the boat either intentionally or by dint of “da Man”. On this moon is where I hear some of the wost spoken English an English Major can ever experience! The political correctness posse tries to rename Black World as “African American World”, but I can’t go there because I’ve never been to Africa – I was born here in the USA. Similar beings try to also disguise it as “Multicultural World”; another non-starter with me. My Mum and Dad always cautioned me about some of those in Black World” because they picked-up the worst traits from the slave masters who founded the the USA and are often act like “crabs in a barrel”. I heard a coworker say it recently (butchering the phrase, by-the-way) and smiled/frowned simultaneously to myself. 

5 -Family World: Speaking of my Mum,part Cherokee Indian, who I love to hear laugh at my jokes on the telephone, is my best friend and one of two women whose advice I will take without question – amazing for me – the other one being my fiancee`, and my late Dad “the Major” who once around this time in 1962 won everything in sight one night on the original TV game show, “The Price Is Right” with Bill Cullen as the host, my Family World is ever-shrinking from the vast body that is was when I was a boy. Maybe you can most-relate to this World if you are of a certain age. Maybe that is part of the reason I am finally ready to take a wife and not go into the “good night” alone if that be the Creator’s will – that and finally finding the true soul-mate; all timetables differ on that desire. If you have a parent over seventy years of age and/or siblings older or younger than you, you can relate to Family World. Outside of the occasional greeting card or even rarer birthday card from a remaining Aunt or my “Godfather”/Uncle, the only inhabitants of Family World are me and my Mum. We comb this world with a combination of past recollections of happy times, updates from her on who recently passed-away and me reminding her that she “just told “ me something she just said five minutes ago! I love how she takes those reminders with good humor and I take her cue to not let it “get” to me like it did a few years ago when she first began showing those symptoms. I still can happily mine her former school teacher mind when need be, garner sage advice and know I am surely blessed to still enjoy her company her in the physical Family World.

Please describe your world(s) in the comment section below.