Why I'm Not Getting On Facebook for At Least a Month

     According to Timeline, I joined Facebook January 2, 2008.  I remember feeling ambivalent about joining.  My life was already pretty full with no online social networking and I didn't see a big attraction to what I thought FB was offering me which seemed to me to be superficial observations on the lives of people I knew and the thousands of people I intended to befriend on the social networking site.  I did not get on to look at family photos of people I knew and would come to meet, or see what people's mood were throughout the day or what they had for dinner.  I got on for business reasons.  I was writing a book and I believed there was no way one could become a successful author without having thousands of friends on FB. 

     Now almost 5 years later I am still writing a book, the last revision of the one I was working on when I got on FB and I want a break - from FB, not from writing.  I ended up liking FB more than I imagined.  I wouldn't say I'm a stone cold addict, but I spend more time on FB than I would like.  I write my book and I browse on FB nearly everyday.  I usually do my book writing in one solid block in the evening averaging about 45 to an hour on weekdays.  Two or three times that much on weekends.  I write much more than I FB on the weekends, but during the week I probably spend a combined 45 to an hour at various points in the day reading the FB posts of my 510 friends.

     I love my FB friends: those I see everyday at home and work, those I have known several decades and see only rarely now and those I have yet to meet in person.  But, I've had enough of this severely circumscribed structure for now.  I see a compulsion growing in me for FB that I do not like.  I am often amused by the posts, sometimes informed but very rarely educated.  Yet, I keep going back looking for something that is not there.  I think it's the humanity of my friends that is missing.  I get bits and pieces of people's points of view.  I get projections of their awareness.  I get flat out titillation, but I never get their wholeness.

     There are friends I have yet to met who I would love to have a face to face conversation with, but I have never reached out to one with a request.  Sometimes because they are a provocatively photographed female and I know where my head is.  Sometimes because they are geographically far away.  Mostly because I don't have time for a real face to face conversation even with people I know and love who I see on FB.  This does not make me sad exactly, incomplete is more like it.

     Then there are the inanities.  The bumper sticker philosophy sayings, the funny cat photos, the indecipherable comments and the loads of things I just don't care about.  This is only a problem because I make it a problem by scrolling through these comments several times a day.  I don't linger on the things that bore me, but I find myself wondering why am I back here.  Nothing interesting happened to these 510 people in the past hour at least nothing that is FBable.  So I'm through for now. 

     My FB fast is a new experiment.  I will come back in a month if I miss it.  Longer if I don't.  I still plan to use FB and lots of other social media to promote this fabulous book I am writing about facilitating groups for men who are parents.  Although more broadly the book is about facilitating groups for people to connect on a deeper level than we can do on FB.

      I'll be thinking about you.  Shoot me an email or give me a call if you want to be in touch.

    Love, Haji

Prince: An Appreciation (2004)

     I went to see the Prince Musicology 2004Ever tour at the Fleet Center other night.  It was a good show.  I’d give it a solid “B.”  For me, none of these past peak performers who used to put on a dazzling show can ever truly match the intensity, creativity and sheer newness of an “A” performance in their prime.  That’s one of the few benefits of taking the early rock star death.  Neither critics nor fans need watch you deteriorate before their eyes.

     I’m happy I went.  The show was hyped for months.  The tabloids screamed, “Prince regains his mantle.”  “His best CD in 10 years.”  “The only show of the summer to sell-out everywhere.”  Prince had become a media darling again.  I decided to go after reading an email interview with him in the Boston Herald.  I was happy he said, “In truth, as a people, we have 2 get back 2 God. In ALL things.” I brought tickets to “a nearly sold out show” on the second day of a three-night stand in Boston.  Although my date and I managed to move into the second row of the balcony, there weren’t many empty seats at the Fleet.

     I had seen Prince live three times before: the “1999” tour at the Boston Garden, Purple Rain at the Long Island Coliseum (by time this stoned head got around to buying tickets for the Boston Purple Rain tour the teeny boppers had snatched them all up).  And I was at the famous 1986 surprise show at the Metro.  I dug him after the second album, Prince, but was captured by his third release, Dirty Mind.  I felt like he was a manifestation of my own muse.  He was speaking directly to me and my people.  I rode the crest through Purple Rain and hung in there for a few more CDs before giving up on him.

     There is a real bittersweetness in watching an artist you love move into superstardom.  I was happy that more people were giving him recognition.  That he was being rewarded financially for his gifts.  That if a lot of people are really digging him maybe you aren’t so far out after all.  And, of course, there is the pleasure of being prescient enough to see the diamond in the rough.  But, the downside is strong as well.  I saw the teenyboppers, middle-agers and generally unhip start coming around because the mainstream press pushes the album or movie.  And every magazine from Ebony to People is putting your boy on the cover trying to cash in.

     Even though Prince had played big venues on the 1999 tour when the Purple Rain tour hit town in 1995, it felt like my family had suddenly adopted a bunch of nerdy fosterkids and now I had trouble getting to the table for my food.  There was strength in numbers, but I questioned these new folks’ commitment to the vision.  What was that vision again?

     He reminded us of a bit of the vision the other night.  He chanted, “People call me rude.  I wish we all were nude.  I wish there was no black or white, I wish there were no rules.”  In case that was a little unclear, he also played “Dance, Music, Sex, Romance” which is perhaps the most succinct verbalization of the vision.  Despite, or because of all the sexual imagery, Prince was the preeminent 80s party guy.  Along with Rick James, who recently died of “natural causes” following years of chemical abuse, Prince was the supreme funkster of his time.  As he started to slide in the 90s he spelled it out for all those too dense to get it.  “My name is Prince and I am funky.”  It was almost as sad as the middle-aged ladies wearing t-shirts to the Musicology show claiming they were “True Funk Soldiers.”  As if a true funk soldier would need to buy a $30 t-shirt to tell you that.

     The funky music was always there, but in the early days it took a backseat to the sex.  That was the thing, of course, that put him over the top.  Maybe because he was still in his post-adolescence when he tasted industry success, he captured a horny gestalt with abandon and innocence.  The girls loved him because he was cute and always had boudoir ballads on his disks as well as get up and dance jams.  The guys loved him because he spoke what was on our mind, maybe nowhere better than “Dirty Mind.”  And he did it with a creative sense of humor and a funky downbeat.

     But, with Prince, you also got something else.  You got a mysterious, spiritual connection.  From chanting the Lord’s Prayer on Controversy, to the psychedelic mushrooms on the cover of 1999, to the “Love God” graffiti in Purple Rain, there was always a devotional element to Princes music.  And with a dearth of interviews, he left the heads to interpret it however suited us.

     Despite the blatant sexual hedonism, I always felt Prince was a spiritual artist.  Given what has gone down in recent years, I feel vindicated in that assessment.  From early on he captured my fascination with both sex and God.  I didn’t want to give up either and he was clearly exploring and praising both in his music.  Although the sex was more in the face, the God piece could be discerned if one looked for it.  That’s how God is.

     I hung in with him for a few more once a year albums after Purple Rain.  I even went to see “Under the Cherry Moon” multiple times (once on mushrooms, although I don’t recommend it).  I even saw Graffiti Bridge in a theatre – and stayed to the end.

     I remember when I finally broke ranks with his Purple Badness.  At the end of “Around the World in a Day” he captures a conversation in the studio between him and God in the song, “Temptation.”  God takes Prince to task for the same things Tipper Gore had earlier, his overt obsession with sexuality.  Prince struggles with his Creator on the track.  Initially screaming, “Nooo!” at his punishment, death.  Then seemingly reborn reports, “Now I understand.  Love is more important than sex . . . I’ll be good.  I promise.”

     It’s a conversation few megastars could pull off straight-faced, but then the boy from Minneapolis was always, ah, different.  The singles from the LP, Raspberry Beret and Kiss, both received substantial radio play and made money.  But Temptation wasn’t intended for mass consumption.  He was sending a message to the true believer that he was finally growing up.  The creative tension between his adolescent horniness and the mature artist sensibility had finally been resolved and, well, the artist had won.  But any addict will tell you that relapse is a part of recovery and it didn’t take long for the musical sex addiction to reassert itself.

     Neither had my life remained stagnant during all those album releases.  By now I had found my own spiritual path.  My personal connection to the Most High deepened, as did my boredom with the general sameness of the Minneapolis sound over the years.  The life of Prince and my own life had shared several interests and parallels over the years, but around 1990 we began to grow apart.  I was married with children and the attraction I used to focus on Prince’s life I now dedicated to saints who took a more direct approach toward Love and God.

     And, just as I gave Prince credit for gaining some sexual maturity, the Black Album fiasco occurred.  According to the rumor mill Prince was working on this new collection of songs that he pulled before release because they were too negative.  Supposedly the lyrics were too salacious even for him.  A bootleg copy of very poor musical quality came into my possession around this time.  It was a major seller by bootleg standards.  For me, it wasn’t even worth the bother of listening to seriously.  I considered the entire album a very broken, very public promise to, not only me, but more importantly to God.  I had had enough.

     That was about 1992.  In all the years since then when I heard of Prince it was like hearing about someone you used to love.  I was a little curious what he was up to and wished him well, but there was no passion, no desire to understand him.

     Then I heard he had become a Jehovah’s Witness.  I heard the news a couple of years ago, before it hit the major media.  A credible source at the periphery of his circle heard the rumor swirling around Minneapolis.  It seemed that Larry Graham of Graham Central Station fame had persuaded Prince into the Kingdom Hall.  Now, that was interesting!  Normally I’m not a fan of religions whose mission includes convincing you your religion is wrong, but this was too sweet.  Can you imagine Prince coming to your door with a Watchtower?  The irony of the purple pervert joining one of the must conservative cults (I use that term not in a derogatory way, but as a concentration of culture) in Christianity was just too good a story. 

     My love for Prince returned because true to form he had once again become creative, which is by definition producing some innovative and different.  It is hard to imagine something more different than the Prince we all knew becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.  If there was any doubt in my mind regarding the authenticity of this rumor it evaporated when I caught the man’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  In accepting his award from a gushing Alicia Keyes, he gave thanks to Jehovah.  I had seen Prince “thank God” at award ceremonies before and his change in language confirmed his conversion.

     Allow me to amplify the most peculiar popular music/religious irony of our time.  Michael Jackson starts his career as a Jehovah Witness youth with a clean cut image and ends up perceived as a sexual degenerate.  Prince starts his career as a perceived sexual degenerate and in middle age ends up a good guy Jehovah Witness.  What is it about this organization that attracts two of the highest caliber black, male superstars? 

     So, I decided to go to the show, not because Prince was promising to retire the old, sexy hits after this tour, neither was it because I enjoyed his new CD – I hadn’t heard it.  It wasn’t even to see “real musicians perform.”  I had seen that before.  The driving force in me dropping $100 for my wife and I to see the show was simply to pay respects to an old friend who resurrected himself from the ashes of mediocrity by once again making a bold move.  I really wanted to acknowledge that he had changed his life and I was happy for him.  I never doubted he could throw one of the baddest parties in town and he didn’t disappoint in that either. 

     By the way, Prince didn’t get where he was just being a kickass performer, the man is a brilliant marketer as well.  In his Herald interview, he talked about the record industry as we know it being obsolete.  I know ripping off talented artists has been a mainstay of the music business since before I was born.  I also understand changing his name to an unpronounceable glyph and writing slave on his face had to do with confronting his former label, Warner Brothers.  And in my book, any artist perceptive and powerful enough to kick corporate America in its teeth deserves applause.

     I bought each of the first 10 Prince albums when they were released (except for the first and second which I went back and bought after Dirty Mind left no doubt he was a genius).  I’ve already mentioned why after 1988’s Lovesexy, I hadn’t bought another CD by the Artist Who Was Formerly My Favorite Musical Performer.  Well, that was not true.  I inadvertently purchased Musicology when I bought my tickets to the show.  Prince, never shabby in the marketing department, scored a coup by selling a cardboard covered CD with every ticket.  With a successful tour, that ploy was enough to push the Musicology CD to the top of the Billboard charts over the summer.  Now, people like myself who would have never bought the CD ala carte, now own it as part of the entrée.

     And to be honest, I was curious to throw it in and see what all the excitement was about.  Alas, it’s not for me.  Some nice grooves to be sure, but when I want to hear Prince, I want to hear the old stuff.  The phrase “shadow of his former self” comes to mind.  But that shadow still has more musical substance and light than most people will ever manifest.  So, I’ll dip into the archives every once and awhile and treat myself to the emotional high I get from the first decade of his output.  And if you want two more copies of Musicology, you can have mine for shipping and handling. 

Reflecting on Dr. King

     One of my earliest memories is sitting on the steps going up to the attic of our house, I was looking down on the landing below as my mother frantically ran between the phone, and the radio, and the TV shouting, “They shot Dr. King! They shot Dr. King!”  Even at 5 years old I knew who they were.  And I knew we were at war.

     When I was a young man, Dr King didn’t have a lot of juice in my circles.  This was the early 80s and everyone was wearing X caps.  That is, if you dug baseball caps which I didn’t, but the idea was Malcolm X was way more popular than Dr. King.  I had spent some time in a revolutionary organization started by Kwame Ture, who used to be called Stokely Carmichael.  He had argued the desirability of non-violence with Dr King in the 60s.  I was personally with Brother Ture on several occasions and felt it was a great blessing to be with one who had worked with and had the courage to disagree with Dr King.

                  Dr. King and Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael) during a Freedom March

     As I got older, I started to appreciate Dr. King more.  His straight up courage, creativity and discipleship impressed me.  I now see him as an example of faith in action; a demonstration of how to attune to a high level of consciousness and to transform society from that elevation.  Albert Einstein said, “Our current problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness at which they were created.”   Dr. King created solutions to some of the most intractable problems we have, inspired by a high level of consciousness.

     There is a famous photo of Dr. King taken inside his Southern Christian Leadership Conference office in 1966.  In the photo, Dr. King is standing in front of a photo of Mahatma Gandhi.  Think about it, for a Black Christian pastor in the U.S. South to have a photo of a Hindu holy man in a place of prominence in his office is a miracle of sorts, albeit of a lesser order than desegregating the Birmingham public transportation.  One can read a lot into that photo and I choose to focus on its ecumenical flavor.  It says to me that Truth can be found in many faiths traditions and I honor Dr. King for being courageous enough to not only learn from Mahatma Gandhi but to acknowledge he was affected by the great Indian spiritual leader.

                       Dr. King in his Southern Christian Leadership Conference office

     This is especially relevant to my life because I’ve spent the last two decades studying meditation and yoga with an Indian spiritual teacher.  As a Black American man I’ve definitely been in a minority on this quest.  As a child, I was introduced to my neighborhood Episcopal church under my mother’s tutelage.  One of my first victories in the quest for independence was convincing my mother to let me out of their Sunday school program I hated.  Apparently, she wasn’t very committed to the church either because she and my sisters also left not too long after I did and never found another.  My father didn’t do church.  

     Although, years after my church defection, as a young man, I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda and decided this was the life for me.  Several years later I met a meditation teacher, Mata Amritanandamayi, I remain with to this day.  I mention this because my meditation practice created another connection to Dr. King.  In 2003, I took my family on a pilgrimage to India for a meditation festival.  We read in the program guide that Dr. King’s daughter, Yolanda, would be giving a talk.  We knew that Yolanda King had met our teacher in the U.S. so this wasn’t a big surprise.  

    Yolanda King placing a garland around humanitarian and spiritual leader, Mata Amritanandamayi

    However, my wife and I were surprised one afternoon when we left the meditation festival to get our shopping on in the local business district and ironically on Gandhi Boulevard, we spotted Yolanda King walking with an African-American female friend.  They were by themselves.  Now catch this, here we are four African-Americans together on the other side of the world, all there for the same event, and my wife and I certified groupies.  We’ve created opportunities to talk with KRS-1, Angie Stone, Lenny Kravitz, and other minor stars.  We are not shy and do not shrink around Stardom.   

     Yet, there was something so different about Dr. King’s daughter that neither of us approached her.  We just watched in awe as she looked over some Indian clothing on the boulevard and we hold that memory in our heart as more evidence of the family’s ecumenical spirit.  Given that Ms. King died at a relatively age a few years after this encounter, it reinforced for us that you have to grab life when you have the chance because you may not get another opportunity.

     As an advocate for social justice, I love that famous line from Dr. King’s 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  For the young folks who missed this in history class, Dr. King was in Birmingham, Alabama leading protests against government and retail segregation he was arrested one of the 30 times during his 39 years visiting Earth.  While incarcerated he wrote an open letter to some white clergy who had been suggesting he chill with the rabble rousing. One sentence frequently lifted out of that letter states, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

     I want to remind you, however, of the less talked about corollary to that law: 

     Justice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere.  

    Injustice may have seemed starker in Dr. King’s day.  Evil appeared more exposed.  Now issues of social justice seem to have proliferated like the 600 stations on cable TV as opposed to the three channels in the 60s. Today, it may be easier to get paralyzed by the choices of where to confront injustice.  Do you get involved with the Occupy Movement, fight school inequalities, support refugee networks, promote antiwar activities, join the movement to end sex trafficking?  It can be overwhelming.  A simple approach to the problem of injustice that everyone can take on starts close to home; in your relationships, at work and in the home.

     For years, I’ve organized groups that help fathers explore and understand their family relationships.  These programs have caused me to look at the issue of interpersonal patriarchy and the right use of power with my wife and children.  Dr. King’s legacy will be forever intertwined with all the other movements for social justice that grew out of the Civil Rights movement.  Social justice struggles for women, immigrants, gays, even on behalf of children.  When Dr. King was writing his letter from the Birmingham jail, it was unlikely that a man would be arrested for what we would commonly call wife or child abuse today.  

     As a society, we’ve learned to live in greater intimacy and harmony not only across diverse communities, but also in our homes.  One of the keys to Dr. King work was the practice of forgiveness.  One can’t imagine Dr. King employing the strategy of non-violent civil disobedience if he didn’t have a strong belief in forgiveness.  As a Christian pastor he came by it honestly.  In the Book of Matthew, Jesus instructs his followers, not to forgive seven times, but 77 times.  Dr King echoed that idea two millenia later when he said, “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it’s a permanent attitude.”  

     My dictionary defines forgive as, to grant pardon; and pardon, to release from penalty for an offense.  You see how potentially problematic and powerful this notion of forgiveness is.  The rational part of our mind rebels, thinking, if we don’t punish the evil doers they will never learn.  However, as Christ and Dr. King taught, forgiveness is a powerful strategy for transforming others and ourselves.  We may not be strong enough to forgive those who thwart our human and civil rights.  But what about those closest to us, who we profess to love?

     If I didn’t mention this my wife, son or daughter would probably tell you that I haven’t mastered the forgiveness attitude.  I live with two late adolescents, i.e., young adults and their teenaged years were the most frustrating years of my life and we’re still working it out.  But, if we can’t learn to forgive the penalties of even a loved one in our family, how will we manage to forgive all the other less related people doing stupid things out there? Forgiveness comes easier when dealing with a loved one.  And it's still hard.

     As of this past Sunday, I’ve been married for 23 years and that has not always been a walk in the park either.  But as difficult as my wife and children can be to live with, the person I have to work most on forgiving is me.  I still make a lot of mistakes and it can be painful for me to look back at all the major blunders I’ve made over the decades.  With myself and others, I have clearly experienced that forgiveness; releasing myself and others from the penalties of the offense is liberating, literally it’s freeing for the person who does the forgiving, as well as the person who is forgiven.  It gives a relationship space to start fresh and new, in a healthier place. 

     I’d like to thank Dr. King for echoing this truth around the planet in my youth.  

 This blog is based on a talk I gave at Dr. King's 2012 Birthday Celebration in Arlington, MA.