Tag: school

audio review : The Sneak Attack ( album ) … KRS-One

audio review : The Sneak Attack ( album ) ... KRS-One

This is KRS-One’s first album since leaving Jive; the major record label he’d been with since By All Means Necessary, which the “contradictory” Teacha also held a gun on the cover of. What this Koch debut brings is what sounds like a much lower school budget compared to his previous set, I Got Next, which included as a bonus song a remix with Puff Daddy.

There are no guest rappers here, but The MC is lyrically as “fresh” as ever. What’s stale are some of these beats and hooks. What Kinda World, Get Your Self Up and Krush Them are particularly banal. The Lessin is a good one though and the Sneak Attack title song is a banger. The album also ends with two standouts; False Pride and The Raptizm.

my rating : 3 of 5

2001

a dream I had about living in a college dorm and seeing an enormous insect

I awoke to the sound of Shaunee talking about how we first met. I couldn’t see her; I was turned away from her with my head wrapped under a sheet and I think I still had my eyes closed; but I could tell it was her from the voice. I was lying on my side and she was lying behind me with her arms wrapped around me. We weren’t in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship, but it did turn me on the way she was hugging me with her mouth so close to my ear.

“I remember when I first met you,” she said before going on to explain that it was in the first grade, meaning the first level of elementary school after kindergarten, but I can’t remember what else she said. It seemed to be about being in a play or something. I don’t know, but I was fascinated. I cherish old school memories, enjoy being reminded of ones I forgot about and even intervened to tell her that, though I didn’t actually remember anything she said happened.

I don’t know if I went back to sleep or what, but when I eventually got out of bed, Shaunee was gone and there was a gay guy in the room or a skinny black guy whose mannerisms fit the gay guy stereotype to a tee. He even did the fake voice thing as he told me something about ordering pizza; he might’ve asked me if I wanted some; but I was too distracted by my repulsion as I considered the possibility that it was him, not Shaunee, who’d embraced me earlier.

Just then a white guy who seemed to have brown curly hair walked into the room. I can’t remember what he said to me, but it seemed he’d gotten upset with me not long before and was trying to explain why. I didn’t want to be bothered, but I listened as he talked, perhaps seeking an unlikely apology, even as we walked from that room to an area separated by what looked like a glass wall or partition with tables and more college-age people on the other side.

I was apparently a college student living in some kind of dorm. The room on the other side of the glass must’ve been some kind of eating or study area, though most of the students I saw were just standing around, conversing with one another and probably on their phones. I observed all of this in a matter of seconds as the guy continued to talk to me when, all of a sudden, I saw what looked like an enormous insect crawling from underneath one of the tables.

I don’t know if it was a roach, a cricket or what, but it was at least a foot long and seemed to be injured; perhaps someone had inadvertently stepped on it; as it crawled toward the room I’d awaken in where the partition stopped. That meant all it had to do was crawl around it to get to where I was, but the dream didn’t last that long. The last thing I remember is interrupting the guy. “Okay, but all I want to know is… what that is,” I think I said as I pointed at it.

2020 ( November 05 )

a dream I had about a gay school teacher giving me his phone number

“866”, he said near the front, or was it the back, of the classroom, trying to be discreet. He’d just said aloud to the rest of the class that, despite another boy hearing him about to give me his phone number and the boy telling everybody else in the room to listen up because he was giving “us” his phone number, he didn’t want “everybody” having his number. He was just talking to me.

That made me feel special, though he’d already given me his number hours before, which I didn’t realize until he completed the last seven or ten; I don’t know if he included the area code or not; digits. “1117,” I think it was. “Oh, that’s the same number you gave me last night,” I responded, dropping the volume of those last two words as he repeated them with a nod of confirmation.

The teacher, a high school teacher I had and became friends with in real life; we talked on the phone for years after I graduated; was one of those gay, or at least bi, men you could tell just by the way they talk; the fake voice thing; and carry themselves. The “last night” bit wasn’t anything gay though, at least not for me. I simply meant that he’d given me his number in class the night before.

It seemed dark out when he gave it to me the second time. Perhaps it was a nightly class and he gave me it about 24 hours prior. It didn’t seem that long ago though. Maybe it was a long class, “last night” meant a few hours ago and it was now early morning. I don’t know, but, aside from any gay ulterior motive he may have had, the reason was because of a big class project we were doing.

I don’t know what it was about or whether or not we were split into groups as we probably would’ve been, but it seemed the whole class was involved. Earlier during that same period, I’d sat at a table with what seemed like Tamekia; a former co-worker of mine in real life; and at least two or three other girls who seemed to want me to sit beside them because they had a crush on me.

2020 ( October 06 )

video review : Cuties

video review : Cuties

Cuties are a dance group comprised of eleven-year-old girls. The movie focuses on a member named Amy as she deals with the juxtaposition of her school and home life. Her mother raises her and her little brother to conform to the traditions of their African religion. Her mischievous schoolmates, the other four Cuties, are her escape.

The plot revolves (gyrates) around a dance contest the girls want to compete in, but there’s little suspense in the buildup. The main character is mostly used as a sexual case study. Watch as she goes on her first period and shares her first pussy pic; interesting tidbits in a coming-of-age story that’s barely adequate as a whole.

my rating : 3 of 5

2020

a dream I had about lying to a high school security guard to get out of trouble

I was back on the first floor and had just turned the corner to what seemed like the main section or hallway of the school, along with two other students I didn’t know, when a uniformed security officer suddenly appeared. It was a black woman who looked like Kash Doll. She asked what we were doing in the hall or if we had permission to be out of class, something like that, as she slapped handcuffs on the boy to my right. She must’ve had encounters with him before.

“I went to the restroom,” I told her in a fake friendly voice, though not in those exact words, as we continued to walk, “We’re having an assembly in the auditorium.” It wasn’t a total lie. There was an assembly in the auditorium and I was there; I remember a staffer moving me to the back for not wearing a Covid-19 mask; but it was damn-near an hour before and I didn’t go to the bathroom. I was basically skipping class, sitting in an empty room, roaming the halls and even the streets outside.

My lie, which was made up on the spot and told perfectly with the body language of a grade-A student with rich parents who feels he shouldn’t have to explain himself to peon security guards, worked, meaning she seemed to believe me. “Okay,” I think she said as I headed toward the auditorium; the direction I just happened to be walking when she saw me. The boy she cuffed was going to jail, getting expelled or suspended, I assumed. I don’t know the fate of the third student.

2020 ( September 07 )