third ward... my backyard

shaq in my backyard? maybe not, but i can pretend that i'm shaq in my backyard while listening to some live music.

soooooo... ummm... yeah, i moved from the gayborhood to the "hood" hood a little over a month ago. i wondered how i'd react to not being two minutes away from all the museums, coffee shops, resales shops, nice restaurants, etc. it's actually been a welcome change. that or i've been too busy to notice. i've been looking into getting a different job (two interviews before work on monday), going to meetings, facilitating meetings, visiting family and friends all over town, meeting new folks, and watching pr0n. things could be better, but that wouldn't be life. i have ALL the things that i need and a few of the things that i've wanted after all of that ****ing dust has settled (or has it... who knows and who gives a damn?).

anyhow... back to third ward. yeah... there's the folks that drive by all hours of the day with the trunks "popped" with bass that rattles my house, there's the crackheads that wander through my garbage on trash day, there's the neighbors that block the street using it as their driveway, there's the mailman who scares the schit out of me thinking that someone is breaking in when he puts the mail through the slot on the door, and there's the random fight that break out in the middle of the night.

believe it or not, i've grown accustomed to all of this (well... less irritated anyway). especially on nights like tonight.

about 15 feet from my backdoor there's a band playing zydeco right now. it's actually not as dark as it looks. there's roughly 70-80 folks from all walks of life back there bobbing their heads, dancing with each other, cooking hotdogs on a stick over the firepit, and carrying on. sorry for the bad camera vid (and you may want to turn the volume down a little). again, it's very dark, but you get the idea.

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the weekend before this one, the houston blues society was hosting an event... again in my backyard. blurry phonecam alert. i get this one or two times a month while sitting on my porching smoking a cigarette and drinking a... vitamin water (pa-tooey!). about 40 folks showed up for this one (more with a lot of folks coming in and out). turn down your volume a bit.

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all this stuff hosted by a guy named don d. we share the same backyard. the whole idea behind his doing this stuff here is to bring folks together... folks from here in third ward, folks from the 'burbs, and... ummmm... other folks. it's badass to see everybody enjoying each other's company, their kids playing with one another, and forgetting about each other's differences.

i've known the guy for about five years now and the dude's amazing. he's done so much for the community here. he's had two strokes in the year and the sad thing is that someone broke into his house while in the hospital for the second. after a hard year last year, he's still attempting a blues festival for this year and he's also in charge of large portion this year's juneteenth festival. he won't see this, but happy b-day, don.

here's to making all places better places.

another random late night thread i guess.