The Past Few Months; Realisations, A Decision

Yeh, I know. Where you been, bxtch? I'm tardy. Apologies, GNOtaku. I really do GAF about you guys...I didn't forget you!

It has been a REALLY difficult past few months. I kinda fell into a depression. And there are a myriad of reasons for that.

For starters, my mami's sister, my Aunt Caroline, had been ailing for months, and I wasn't aware of the seriousness of it. Because of the stigma attached to me due to stuff that went on in my past-life (pre-rebirth), I had kept a bit of arm's length between me and most of my immediate families on both maternal and paternal sides. I had talked to my aunt at intervals--she would call me or I would call her on our birthday, August 24th, and shoot the shxt. Or she'd call just for no apparent reason. Which was okay. I just couldn't be sure...well, let's us just say I couldn't be sure what condition she'd be in when we talked.

She'd been diagnosed with cancer before, and had had surgery, and they got it, as far as I knew. But more recently, she'd fallen ill with some sort of bug that made it impossible for her to eat for at least a month. She was admitted to hospital. At some point she was in a coma and had stopped breathing. A surgeon was called in, but she refused to operate, because nothing could be done. From what I understand, the pictures of my aunt's stomach were a mess. She had a lot of internal bleeding. At one point, she did actually wake up (I'm sorry; I'm all over the place), and was talking, and basically freaked everyone out because a few days prior, she'd been intubated and wasn't allowed to talk. She was very weak and doing poorly. When she woke up and started talking and eating, we thought she was on the mend. But that didn't happen...

Soon after, she passed away. I was in the room when it happened. My cousins and my mami say she'd already gone, but...that just isn't true. She was still there. I could feel her...and then she was gone.

The funeral planning was a special kind of chaos, but I'm not going to go into that. I will say this, though: GET A FXCKING ADVANCE DIRECTIVE. Like, RIGHT NOW.

So, that was one thing. At the same time my aunt was in hospital, my father was also admitted to hospital. He'd fallen ill, couldn't keep anything down, got really dehydrated. He ended up staying, and it turned out he had a blood clot. Which wasn't good because my dad had a stroke back in 2007 and spent time in rehab due to it. (Just remembered: the same thing happened to my aunt around the same time. UGH.) I was genuinely worried and sooo very frightened. My baby brother flew home from GA to be here. And fortunately, he recovered. He's back home and doing great. In fact, the day he was released, we ended up recording that night, LOL.

My dad is pretty hardy. I'm so grateful he recovered because that could have been so much worse...

What else? Let's see...

So, the weekend we worked on the rough of a song that ended up being called "Thirsty", I went over to Darkroom to re-record some vocals. My eldest brother happened to be there with my dad's sister: my Aunt Joanie, and my grandmother. (She's pretty hardy herself, BTW. At 96, she's still getting around and everything.) When I got there, they were getting ready to leave. I knew I had to brace myself for being called the past-life name. I was ready for that, but not ready for what followed. This was my Facebook status about it:

"My 96-yrs old grandmother totally got me.
'You look good,' she said. 
'Thank you, Grandma,' I said.
"She reaches out and touches my waist. 'Maybe you'll lose some of this,' she sez. 
"In. Front. Of. EVERYBODY! My dad, two brothers, aunt, and stepmom.
"I'm all ::urk::
" 'Someday,' was all I could manage.
” 'Someday,' she repeats.
"Mor. Ti. Fied.
My stepmom, bless her, takes the spotlight off me by going, 'Join the group.'
::goes to apply cold water to burned area and then to a corner to die::"

OMGGGGGGGG what a fxcking nightmare. I love my grandmother but she totally set me up! Complemented me and then shot me right the hell down, LOL. But Sag people tend to say things like that: "Y'know, you look good in vertical stripes. They totally make your thighs look smaller." They call it Foot-In-Mouth Disorder. ::shakes head::

Anyways, this came in a month of people critcising me about my weight, saying stuff like, "Why make it harder on yourself" by having all this weight, and the like. Like I could just one day get up and suddenly go, "Extra poundage, begone! Poof! Ta-daaaaaah!"  All of it was somewhat hurtful.
Okay, all of it was VERY hurtful. It came behind me posting a Throwback Thursday picture of myself when I was 150--which people still considered obese.

It led me to a realisation that, no matter WTF I do, I am still going to be considered obese/fat/chubby to someone. Radical acceptance!

I have a lot of issues there. Growing up, I was called ”cow”, ”pig”, ”chubby”, ”pregnant”, ”side of beef”, ”slab of bacon”...you get the idea. I was always told to hold my stomach in, tuck my butt under. I would sit on chairs with my legs raised to make them look less big because I always got teased about my thighs by my family and classmates. Eventually--and unconsciously-- I developed an eating disorder. Then, I was criticised--and by some of the same family members--for being too skinny. It was like, "MAKE UP YOUR FXCKING MIND!"

Yet, I have always struggled with it. At every weight I have been, someone was always calling me fat. My weight has been up and down, for one reason or another. Medication, lack of activity; ephedra, inability to eat, more activity. I can't even count calories because it brings up all that shxt from before, and I might think, "Oh, it would be so much easier to start back on the ipecac syrup", but that is not what I want. I am at a weight right now that I do not like, and I'm trying to do something about it, but it seems to never be enough for my critics.

They don't realise that all their comments--however well-meaning they may be--do nothing but set me back and impede my progress. It negates all the work I've done on myself in my head. Why that is, I'm not sure. I just know that certain things get stuck in my head and they don't fuel me to do something--the fat-shaming and the naysaying-- they have the opposite effect: they just shut me down. That kind of stuff never worked with me. I guess that's one thing from the past-life I have carried over that I still need to work on. And I am.

I've been debating vlogging about what I'm about to say next. I believe in being transparent with you guys. I mean, not everything is always good at Tha Cat Lair. I tend to Facebook-status my venting about what's wrong more than blog or tweet on it.

A couple of years ago, 3 Miles and I got into an agreement with a distribution label and LSS, signed away the rights to GATA City for two years. Big. Mistake. I wish we had never done it, I wish I had listened to my intuition, and I wish I didn't sign the contract during Mercury Retrograde. Basically, we signed a contract to keep doing what we'd ALREADY been attempting to do on our own, except someone else owns the rights and/or makes money from it. Imagine having to ask for permission to post your own fxcking music! Imagine copyright claims being thrown at you from every platform your music was already posted on before you even signed the agreement! Uber frustrating. I cannot promote myself properly if I am being restricted. Can't enter comps or anything like that because, since I am signed to two small labels, essentially, it is usually against the rules. The label is suffering financial setbacks due to us being swindled not once, but several times by different people we thought we could trust, and due to that we couldn't promote effectively or frequently. It is a clusterfxck of immense proportions. And meanwhile, we still have this unnecessary contract hanging over us. I still have the masters, but I am powerless for now.

Between this, and learning that my brother's laptop had been stolen, and along with it, the instrumental and raw tracks for GATA City (which were on an external drive) it seemed like the writing was on the wall. I made the decision to just back off for now with promoting that project until the agreement expires. I think I have an idea of how Prince must have felt. I'm not changing my name to no symbol, though.

We don't have much longer in the contract, but the project just seems to have taken on a weight of its own; it seems like my boulder I have to push uphill just to have it tumble down again. It's disheartening.

Also, in the process of all this turbulence, it hit me one day that I am Chief Operating Officer of 3 Miles Entertainment, and have been for the last two years. I didn't realise it even when my father (who is CEO) validated me for a decision I made regarding yet another struggle with the other label. "You did the right thing as an executive for 3 Miles Entertainment," he'd said. It took an article I was reading at the time to bring me to that realisation. I think that if I had done sooner, I would have made a different decision, put my foot down a little harder, and we wouldn't be in this mess.

So, the only time I will be doing anything with GATA City is the occasional performance. Which, at this time, doesn't seem likely as I am currently searching for someone to replace 3D, and I need to get into fighting shape again. (As I said, I've been in a depression. Which, incidentally, is also something I've struggled with for years.)

For the most part, GATA City is to me like an estranged child that I am not allowed to see very often. It hurts that I am so limited, but I have to push the hurt aside and start fresh, move on until we can be together again properly.

So, yeh...it's been hard. I am currently bent on making something new and doing more of it my way. I am having to come from another place with my projects. I think the universe is telling me to back up and regroup. I have to start over...

I think I'll be fine. We'll be fine. Once everything is sorted, and we get more people who GAF about our vision in our corner instead of using us as stepping stones to further their careers, we'll be golden and our run will be salvaged.

On Being "Tawdry" and "Offputting"...

I got a review once from The Daily Vault that resulted in an A- (not too shabby). To this day, I think the reviewer was the only one who really got me musically, and I was SO happy and relieved about that, even though my brother wasn't as appreciative of what was said about the production of GATA City. (TBH, I don't think it sounded as "homegrown" as we were told in the article.) I think this will be remedied in future projects; but we've heard quite a few favourable comments from others (including, but not limited to people in radio) about the production, so I just chalk it up to "this shxt ain't for everybody". I mean, considering what passes for "the sound" nowadays... if this is what is considered "chique", then, I'll stay sounding "homespun", thank you very much, LOL.

The review also said this:

An integral part of [Tha]Gata Negrra’s image is her weirdness, which can seem a bit tawdry and offputting. Her music, however, is anything but. Gata Negrra might like to be... an anime character that wears gaudy clothes and makeup, but GATA City is an ordinary mainstream pop album – an enjoyable and a great mainstream pop album.
Huh. Okay.
I'm guessing the reviewer has never been to Japan. Or watched an anime. I could be wrong.
At the time, I wasn't quite offended; I've been getting that "OMG whatthehellisthat" reaction all my life, so it isn't new to me. I did bristle a bit at "tawdry" and "gaudy", which are usually pretty negative words:

taw·dry- adjective \ˈtȯ-drē, ˈtä-\ : cheap and gaudy in appearance or quality; also : ignoble <a tawdry attempt to smear his opponent> noun: cheap showy finery


gau·dy-  adjective \ˈgȯ-dē, ˈgä-\
1: ostentatiously or tastelessly ornamented
2: marked by extravagance or sometimes tasteless showiness : outlandish <gaudy lies> <gaudy claims>;
also :exceptional <a gaudy batting average>
Note that "gaudy" is actually used as a synonym for "tawdry".
Those words are just more shorthand for "We don't get it". Or, "We can't wrap our eyes around it. It's too much."
Okay. I'll buy that for a dollar. Like I said: it's nada new.
I was talking with someone I know who works for a prominent indie label and, in general, likes my look/brand, and he likened me to a fire hose...in that, when the audience comes to drink, instead of giving them a water fountain trickle, I visually give them a faceful of high-jet water. I thought it was funny, actually. And not por nada: it's kind of the point.
The odd bit is that this guy, who I respect and admire immensely and love him to death, actually suggested that I strip down--like a LOT--and give you guys the full-jet later (and yet, he loves and promotes people like Kerli, Lady Gaga, and Nicki Minaj and Madonna). I didn't immediately object--I mean, this guy is who he is for a reason-- but it would be, I dunno, untrue to me. I don't like giving people the untruth. I want to give you the full truth. I don't mean truth as in shedding all of the clothes and barrettes and adornments. Those are just amplification. I mean, if everyone wanted truth, we'd all be running around naked, no?
I mean full truth as in giving you the whole ThaGataNegrra experience. And that is what people come to see me for. You didn't come to see me sans synthlox extensions, sans clothes, sans the..."explosive" version of me. You didn't come to see me be "normal". You weren't attracted to me because I'm freaking "normal".

You came because you saw me flying my freak flag, didn't you?

You came because you saw that it isn't some chyck making play she's so unusual (yes, that is indeed an intentional Cyndi Lauper reference) like some artists you might see out there...you saw that it is coming from a place where genuine "weirdness" is rampant. You've either visited that place or wanted to visit that place, or wanted to know what that place looked like before you went there.
That's what I represent.
And if I came to you with my natural coily hair as it is now, in blue jeans and a fxcking plain black t-shirt and tried to sell you the Meowness, you. Would. Not. Buy it. Period.

I will say that when I was younger, all the way up to where I am now, I have expressed myself differently than that of my peers, even if I had on the same outfit (or elements of the same outfit), I must have carried it differently than they. I've seen people look at old pics of me and say, "You didn't look weird at all!" No, not to them in the picture. But, if you were walking down street with me at the time it was taken, in that outfit, you'd have heard a whole bunch of taunts thrown at me. I never got that. Still don't. But it is what it is.
Back then, it was: "THIS bxtch..." now it's: "THIS bxtch is walking through the supermarket with ma-fxckin' CAT ears on."
I do that because it's true for me now. That--walking through the supermarket with ma-fxckin' cat ears on-- is. MY. TRUTH. And I would be less than respectful of me-- of you, even-- if I didn't do that.
I just took a course that advised the very thing that I am already doing. I was pleasantly surprised to hear this. And I'm proud of the fact that I've already got "it". One less thing for me to learn.

I was recently reminded that for some reason Cyndi Lauper was a big influence on me. That I loved the look that Prince and all his proteges touted in the Revolution and New Power Generation eras. That it was all about shell-toe Adidas. That I wanted violet and white hair. That I had an affinity for and with cats. That I used to want to be like the characters from Battle of the Planets/Gatchaman. That I was a lot like Yuri from The Dirty Pair (Adam Warren version). That I once got teased for looking like "a reject from the X-Men" (which I thought was so funny...).
It certainly explains a lot about me.

If you notice the last part of the definition for gaudy, it says: "exceptional".
"EX-CEP-TION-AL".

ex·cep·tion·al (ikˈsepSHənəl)adj.
1. Being an exception; uncommon.
2. Well above average; extraordinary: an exceptional memory.
3. Deviating widely from a norm.
I can take that.

So, when I got the link to the review from The Daily Vault, it was accompanied by an email from the writer. In it, he expressed the fact that he loved what I was doing, to keep up the good work, and signed it, "Your fan from Canada".

In the end...still expressed being a fan. I was humbled.

That is what being true to who you are can get you. It takes longer, but it's worth it.

Random Birthday Post

So, it's my birthday, and because one of my dancers, 3D, posted this on my wall on Facebook

...we ended up watching Chapelle's Show. Of course, I remembered that Mr. Chappelle and I share a birthday...and because of the episode where this happened, I was reminded of this:

This is my fave of that meme....HAHAHAHA
Okay, I'm done.

When I'm Stuck...

It's never fun to be stuck in a rut when you want to create something. I tried to describe the feeling once, and the best I could do was "It's like being pregnant with a LEGO sculpture and having to give birth to it brick by tedious brick."
I know. That WAS weird. But that's how it felt!
I mean, it's like I'll get a few things: a line here, a line there, an idea for a song over there. I jot them down straight away if I can. But have me sit and try to actually come up with a whole thing...it's rough.
I imagine it's due to stress, and stagnant energy. It's totally frustrating.
I have been told that I need to move from where I am to shake that up. Oh, but if it were that simple. Hopefully soon, where it is airy and sunny and I can go connect with the earth if I need to. I think that's something everyone has to do every once in awhile...
I used to dance to free up energy, but I don't so much anymore. It just doesn't bring me the same joy it did in my Past-life...at least for now. I think it was smothered out of me by a few key toxic relationships that used to be a part of my life. Maybe later, my view on that will change. Now when I stress, I sing it out, even though my voice isn't the best. But I feel that in my heart, and I just have to get it out...and what songs I choose are ultimately up to how I feel, the ones that I'm making an emotional connection with at the time. It feels good. Somehow, music has always been able to do that for me.
Not much to this blog...but thought I'd share.

Still "The Two-Take Kid"...

Last month, I had the genuine pleasure of making an appearance in a good friend of mine's video. His name is Mr. Live and he is one of the MCs I can truly say I have a healthy amount of reverence for. Although you wouldn't know it by the fact that I showed up extremely late to said video shoot!
The call time was for 9 AM at the earliest--how about, due to unforeseen circumstances (read: NOBODY'S alarm went off at Tha Cat Lair), I ended up there at more like, 1 PM? It seemed as if everything was conspiring to stop me from arriving, but we made it, and Mr. Live was very forgiving (not sure about his partner Earl Blaize, though. He barely said two words to me, LOL).
At any rate, I sat in the subway car, brushed on makeup as fast as I could, and watched the filming take place. I was comforted by the fact that it reminded me of how guerrilla my own video had been when it was filmed. Peace again ended up being a part of the production by proxy. I need to just take him everywhere I go forever.
Soon, it was my turn to film, and I needed to have a 'tude, so I got into character for my brief moment. I was worried I would suck and screw it up, thereby cementing the exasperation experienced by the cast and crew who waited for my tardy ass. I looked dead in the camera and said my line on cue (I had been listening to the song almost non-stop for the past three days, right up until I showed for the shoot), and cringed at the slight pause...then cringed even more at the round of laughter that came afterwards. OMG, I thought, that must've really sucked.
"That was good!" said one of the crew, laughing. Mr. Live looked satisfied. "I feel kinda jilted," he said. The take was good! Thank God.
They wanted to get another one, so I said the line a second time. More laughter and more satisfaction from Mr. Live. So I was relieved and very happy.
Besides the party/fantasy scene that took place, I was basically done. I said, "I better had gotten it in two takes, showing up as late as I did...shxt!"
A recurring theme in my life, with anything I've done, was to finish my work in two takes. I admit that at most points in my life I would nail it in one, but not always. My father had taken to calling me "The Two-Take Kid". Hence, the title of the blog.
I'm just glad I haven't lost my touch.
Here's the finished product below.

Sorry to Be All Late With an Entry...

Some catching up:
For those wondering "What happened to the manga?"-- it's coming, worry not. "Yeh," the cynical amongst you say, "so is Christmas." Oh, just wait for it, LOL.
I'm also working on publishing my novel in paperback. I had just been selling it as an e-book, but a childhood friend who just published hers inspired me to go for the hardcore and make it physical. Some people just still like the feel of a book in their hand. Now while I can read digital stuff all day long, I still enjoy a book; the smell, the weight, the page turning. Nada like it! Plus, it doesn't really seem tangible unless it's right in front of you. I estimate I will be done with both by the end of the summer.
Trying to find a dancer is still not bearing fruit; either they've been overqualified, or shy, or not a good fit. But we're not giving up!

One thing I have been doing lately, and with baby steps, is trying to eat better, cleaner. It's hard, when you have people in your family who don't always read labels, and compounded by the sometimes seemingly impossible task of finding GMO-free food. We eat as much organic as we can. We are substituting certain fats for other fats. We are trying to think "natural"--and I mean REAL natural, not that shxt they put on packaging as a buzzword to get you to buy it. It's difficult, but we feel better for it. And TBH: it really does taste better. Now if I could just get my cosmetics and toiletries and crap all- or mostly natural, that would be nice, but as I said, "baby steps".

I will be working on a mixtape, so I'm on the hunt for producers, since it seems that my former producer (read: brother) has his sights set on something else. It's been slow going due to writer's block kicking me in the head, but I still get lines and write them down to sort them out later. I don't believe in forcing the process, because you get lazy and then just write anything, and that ultimately isn't fair to you, my audience. I have seen people, artists out now, start out with some good shxt and then just get lazy because everyone's kissing their ass. It's sad...

The team is also trying to find a venue to run a bi-monthly showcase...since the ops are few and far between for something different in our area. We'd like to find the people who say "fxck the box" and just do them.

Oh, and lately, it seems that people who have been doing their thing Nippon-style have been falling into/back into my life again, so I may just get to try a real bowl of ramen...
I've been in training...I'm hoping to post some content of that. So keep checking here, and Miau Central on YouTube, as well as my Instagram...

Humility, Motherfxcker--Do You Speak It?!

"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less."--C. S. Lewis

"The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do." --John Ruskin

I chose that title because it was the first thing I thought of when I got the notion to write this. I'd thought of  the proceeding incidents, and then of the catalyst of said incidents, and then realised the type of mindset I was actually dealing with...let's just say the type you take with a very tiny grain of salt.
That, and I thought of Sam Jackson's line in Pulp Fiction.

It was brought to my attention awhile back that because I am dead honest about my strengths and my weaknesses, certain people had some really stupid names to call me. I need to mention, I suppose, that these aforementioned people wouldn't know humility from the hole in their arse, so I imagine such a concept is lost on them if they think me pointing these things out about myself is stupid.

Anyway...I've also noticed that people also take this as me being "down on myself". Now while I will be first to admit I have a tendency to be a bit self-deprecating, in this life I am less about putting myself down and more about being brutally honest with myself, contrary to what some people would have you think. All I ever do is take inventory.

One thing I've noticed--and especially amongst people of colour--AND amongst those in my genre-- is if you're not constantly bragging about how badass you are, or what shxt you have, or how many bxtches/nxggas you pull, or how yer "living/lovinglife and doing you", you pretty much are negative, or worse, nothing. If you state the situation as real as it is, you are accused of being negative. It's always the realist that's negative. It's not even about putting it into the air, so much as putting it into the air so you know where you stand, and can begin to assess and change it.

I have never been a person to assert things about myself that weren't true. At all. I know what my strengths are. I just don't go round overtly beating the world over the head with it. I'm an emcee; of course at some point I'm gonna be like, "I can turn a phrase/leave yer ass amazed" or some shxt like that (see what I did there?). It's my job. But I'm not gonna flat-out lie, or "fake it till I make it". Just not my style. I've pushed down sadness to get through things, but not before I've gone off and had a bit of a vent about it somewhere someone couldn't see. Not everything is meant for the world's eyes.

I know what my weaknesses are. I don't let everyone know about all of them, but I don't hide them all, either. Some are glaringly obvious and I will alert people to them if I feel it's necessary, partly because it allows me to improve. I don't see how that makes me negative, or a "dunce" (Jesus, what an old-fashioned word). If anything, it makes me very aware of who I am, which is more than can be said for a lot of people. In that, I think there's positivity. What could be more positive than honesty? Yawl talk all this noise about "keeping it real" and get mad when someone actually does. Wow.

I was always taught to be humble. Sometimes I think it was drilled home a little too hard, in that the result is I don't run around tooting my own horn like an egomaniac. Sometimes you have to toot your own horn to the right people. Yet if you're a party horn trying to come off like a vuvuzela...that's a problem.

Cocky does not equal confident. There seem to be a lot of people deluding themselves on that. If you have to constantly yell at the world how great you are, then you must not really be that great. The world can see right through veneers like that. Why bother, when I could just be me? If I'm not good enough for you, then fxck you, basically. I'll find those I AM good enough for.

Behaving as if I have delusions of grandeur just isn't me. I told yawl "straight, no chaser" and I meant it.
So, when someone says I'm "acting big and bad", they couldn't BE more wrong. Sometimes people can project their own fail onto others; they assume that's how the person they are accusing of that is behaving because it's something THEY themselves would do, when the reality is they couldn't be further from the truth. Leave your ego in its case. Don't hang it on me like a petulant child.

And don't judge me if I should say something that you perceive as "negative" or me putting myself down. Look closer. You might see the rarest of truths.