Happy Friday!!! It's been a great couple of weeks despite the economic death spiral (as John Stewart described the current state of affairs on last night's Daily Show). A lot has happened on the national front and I'm getting quite a few things moving on the personal front. So I celebrate this with a picture of my daughter's idol, Dora The Explorer, saying one of her favorite words, "Vaminos!"--- Let's go!

Today, I'm spending the morning in Wisconsin to attend my uncle's funeral. Then from here I'll head down to Chicago to spend the weekend with the folks and hopefully catch up with some cousins. I wish all of you a Happy Friday and a great weekend.

Thanks for the love you give MakesMeWannaHoller.com. I'll catch up with you next week.

Last Friday, I decided to take the wife out for dinner without any prompting from her. She's been under a lot of stress at work lately. But do I really need a reason (should I have to have a reason) to do something special for my wife?

I took care of everything --- set my son up for the night with a few of his friends and got our babysitter to spend the night to look after babygirl. My wife told me earlier in the week, "I wanna see a grown up movie...a movie my son can't see and doesn't want to see."

"There's Notorious?" I suggested, joking.

To which she gave me that, "Are you kidding me?" look.

We agreed to see Slumdog Millionaire and in keeping the theme of the evening the same, I suggested Indian for dinner.

This is where things went south.

Our favorite Indian restaurant is located in a little enclave of restaurants off Fort Washington up near Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan. But based on the movie times, we wouldn't be able to eat there. So we opted for a local spot she discovered about month into our marriage. We went there once. She had a great time. I left the restaurant with the shakes and about a half-mile away wound up projectile vomiting all over the dashboard of my truck while driving. To this day I don't believe my vehicle has ever gotten over this traumatic event.

I threw up because I have a peanut allergy and allergies to every other nut on Earth. We think that something she ate did it to me, as we make a practice of sampling one another's foods. Not willing to make the same mistake twice she asked the waiter, the hostess and the owner several questions and she told me with fork in hand and pointed my way, "You're not ruining my date. I'm going to see my movie!"

I had no intention of ruining anything.

I began the evening with some delicious Naan bread with pieces of lamb baked into it. And I should've stopped there because as soon as I bit down into my entree that feeling came over me. The Mr. Hyde transformation that comes over me when I eat something with nuts in it as Dr. Jekyll.

My wife took one look at me and knew. But I insisted I was fine. I drank some water, took a deep breath and cleared my tightening throat. A few more minutes of feeling my breath becoming more labored and my eyes swelling and I was done. I excused myself from the table, calmly walked to the men's room, found a nice quiet stall and shoved my index and middle fingers as far down my throat as possible.

In the time it takes a man to pee, I returned to the table all smiles and told my wife, "Let's go. We're gonna be late for the movie."

"You sure you're alright?"

"Yeah," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I'm good."

"Your eyes are blood red, liar," she said with a smile. "You're on a model's diet, huh?"

All I would say is that the sewer system got some good-ass lamb bread. My wife laughed, she packed up all the food as her leftovers and I wished I had just stuck with my appetizer which had me full anyway. The restaurant had no explanation, given that they were aware of my "condition" and fully catered to it. But I am allergic to coconut too. We did forget to mention that and coconut milk is a common ingredient in Indian rice dishes.

Slumdog Millionaire was excellent and I do hope it wins an Oscar. It definitely deserves one. I was riveted for the entire 122 minutes. We went home happy. So I give our first date night of the year a four out of five stars.

Conversation: Great

Appetizers: Great

Movie: Excellent

Throwing up all my food in the bathroom of the restaurant: Not So Great

Knowing my wife had a nice night out: Worth every minute of the rest of it.

Over the past couple of weeks I, along with my blogging buddy, Brookey, have been talking relationships, Black Love and so on. As I live with a woman myself, my wife, I'm forced to have daily intense interactions with another person --- for better or worse, and reflect on them.

What does it take to love a black woman? Do black men deserve to be loved? Are Barack & Michelle the quintessential of black love, and so on. At the center of these questions is the question of love. Love period. Color, class or creed be damned.

For all of us love takes different forms, as it lies in the eye of the beholder. And trust me, as a semi-hopeless romantic, it is very easy to fall in love. The problem is being "in love" in that spontaneous, uncontrollable way passes very quickly. Prior to my wife, none of my relationships worked because I simply wasn't interested after that "in love" feeling passed and was emotionally incapable of making love work. Plus, when I wasn't walking away, I was getting dissed and cheated on (probably because many of my relationships began with me helping them cheat on someone else), so I didn't get the chance to find out what my emotional stamina was even when I did want to stick around.

But what about that spiritual component? Yes, I'm going there. I've watched so many friends get divorced and I've even found myself a bit bewildered in the midst of arguments I have with my wife. Would these things happen to the degree that they do if everyone...if I, were equally yoked?

I believe they would, but maybe not with the intensity that they do.

The terminology being equally yoked is specific to the Christian faith, but I'm sure most religious beliefs have some passage or clause that warns about becoming one with someone who doesn't share your beliefs. On its face it can be a source of strife. No different than a boss who has a staff who doesn't share his/her goals. No matter how hard you try, you'll always go in different directions.

I'm sorry to say that when I've specifically heard the term, "being equally yoked" it's usually coming from a friend who's lamenting that some woman he's dating who's a born-again Christian with 3 kids by 4 different men is telling him he's going to Hell for not going to church with her. Clearly this is wrong and does more to chase people away from Christianity than embrace it.

But what about being equally yoked? If, by your faith, it's easy to forgive, easy to move with the ebb and flow of life, you try to keep love at the forefront of your thoughts, you chose to stay away from things that poison your mind, you don't gossip or you're just very thankful. What if the person you're with is on their own program? They act out of their own strength, they are easily angered, they always find some reason not to trust or believe in anything or anyone, or they seem lost in this life. Not can't-find-a-job lost, but just LOST, hopping around life making a mess of theirs and anyone's they come into contact with.

My twist on this is that you can be equally yoked and not necessarily be of the same faith or same devoutness. I don't believe God is this rigid and if this were the case then like peoples would only marry each other (making for a very dull planet). But I do believe you have to be on the same page with your partner. Being on the same page opens the door to understanding one another and encourages the pursuit of that understanding if it doesn't exist from the very beginning. The one thing I will say in support of being equally yoked: when two are equally yoked it is slightly easier to discern one's actions from oneself. So when things do go wrong you're fighting the wrong and not each other. The Bible says, "Hate the sin, not the sinner."

So are you equally yoked with your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/partner? Are you not? Do you feel you have to be? Does it even matter? Does your love (or like) work? Could it be stronger? Whatever your pleasure, please share with in a Holler Back.

This is the first month my hits have exceeded a thousand and my page views are barreling quickly to two thousand. This is a small number considering the hits that most blogs get, but given my specific subject matter: being an African American dad and husband and other random thoughts and given I'm not showcasing buffoonery on a daily basis and given the fact that the blog is barely a year old yet (it will be next month), I'm definitely pleased with these results.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't think I could do better or I didn't want to do better.

If you happen to be a casual visitor to MakesMeWannaHoller.com, and you're not a commitment-phobe why don't you make your commitment to my ramblings official? There's a variety of ways you can do this. You can:

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Otherwise, happy humpday. If you're in New York, stay dry. It's a snowy and wet one out there.

Thanks for the love, so far. Peace.

I originally saw this madness on Latinegro's blog. Please, just click play.




They aren't joking at all. In fact, if you don't believe it's showing at Sundance this year, click here.

I love Blaxploitation flicks and completely understand the era from whence they came. But why?! Why now?!

(Huge sigh.)

I know I'm going to go see it. But I may have to sneak out of the house to do it.

At the beginning of the month I had a photo shoot and needed a location. What better place than one of my favorite places in Manhattan? The good people over at Judith Filgueiras Weinberg Photography took care of me that day. Below are some of my favorite shots from the shoot. I figured I'd post these to show a man can and should have a few positive escapes. And if you're stuck at your desk as you look at these pics and regret being there, then try to get out more.

Peace.

This past Saturday my mother sent me a text message notifying me that my Uncle Frank was admitted to the ICU at some hospital in Racine, Wisconsin and that she'd give me details later. When I spoke to her later, she told me he wasn't doing well, but for some strange reason couldn't tell me what was wrong with him. But my mother can't give me any amount of information when I ask for it so I wasn't too surprised. Despite his prognosis, whatever that was, she prayed over him and remained optimistic. And so did I.

My father, ever the stoic, didn't share my mother's optimism.

The next morning my mother called me in as chipper a voice as she could manage then told me Uncle Frank (Franklin Delano Payne - named after the President) passed away at 3 a.m. in the morning after succumbing to colon cancer. I can't say we had a relationship and as what often occurs upon the death of a distant loved one, I was quiet for most of the day regretting that we did not. He was younger than my own father by one year (my father was long in the tooth before having me), and leaves behind a wife and three daughters. He was one of my father's six brothers and two sisters. Now, only four brothers remain.

I'm very proud of both sides of my family, but I am particularly proud of my father's side. Products of Mississippi (I can say the "M-I-crook'd letter, crook'd letter I...." thing really fast --- you have to be REAL country to know this, let alone say it without pausing or blinking).

Dating back to the mid-1800s, there hasn't been a single head of household on my father's side who was not a landowner. The earliest record I could find on Ancestry.com to substantiate this was my great grandmother --- a woman who was born in 1852 and died in 1968.

Yeah...they stick around on my father's side.

Growing up in Chicago, I would visit my own grandmother in Wisconsin every summer. Only in my college years did I realize she owned the entire corner of the street where she lived. Retired from a career spent cleaning white folks' homes, once a month she would go door to door to the two other homes on her plot, collect checks and come back home to watch the soaps. Talk about gangsta? That was real gangster. Or rather, true entrepreneurship understood long before it was en vogue to package it in classes, books, tapes and CDs.

Economy be damned, this year will be the year I own land. I've owned a co-op but a co-op is merely four walls inside a building you share with many. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just not what I want. For the sake of my own family and to continue in the tradition of my own lineage I will have a homestead.

I take solace in the fact that Uncle Frank was a witness to history last week. Many that have come before him were not, at least not in physical form (for those of us who believe in an afterlife). I appreciate him. I honor him. I salute him.

Peace.