I’d like to dedicate the following post to a brother of mine, Jake. Never mind that he’s an avid Ye fan, he’s an avid Chicagoan through and through, which is one of the reasons I love the guy. Be it Derrick “Street Clothes” Rose, MJ, or Navy Pier itself, Jake will defend it ferociously. God bless him. So, when he asked me what’d I’d thought of the Ye album, I hadn’t sat and “lived with it” at all, but now I have. Thanks to his nudging, nonetheless. I’ve come up with a track by track review, because a Kanye West album deserves as much, as Kanye West would say.

Before we dive into this, let me say that that ‘Graduation’ is my favorite Ye album thus far. While MBDTF is a top seven masterpiece of all time, ‘College Dropout’ has an enviable track list and ‘808’s’ was a right time, right Ye compilation, it is that album that speaks to me in it’s entirety the most. With that said, after...

Reparation - 1. the making of amends for wrong or injury
2. compensation in money, material, labor, etc.

“It could make me a little bitter only because slavery, prejudice and racism isn’t something that I support. Yet, I am not getting paid for being white and not racist.” - Meg, Caucasian, 19

“The government is already in all kinds of debt, I don’t think they should be handing out money just to anyone.” Hannah, Caucasian, 20

“No. It’s too late, man. What about all the poor white people?” Jack, Caucasian, 22

When presented the question: If we (Afro-Americans) were to get reparations, how much do we deserve? How would this change your attitude towards us? Why? These were some of the answers I received from my peers. While this piece isn’t to sway you either way, as I suspect many (if not all) of you will disagree with my take, I expect you to hear me out at the...

Too often we as mere mortal beings forget how little we are in control of our surroundings. While I do believe there is a tremendous amount of influence one may spew upon the world, controlling how anything turns out is a completely different realm. You ever meet someone with their entire life planned out? I hate those people. “I’m going to be a doctor at 23, married at 25, mom at 26, millionaire at 29, have a yacht by 33 and traveling the world by 40.” Shut up. No you’re not, Ms. Cleo. There is no way you can possibly attain everything you want in a known time frame because that isn’t how life works. That said, I have two goals for myself: Successfully become financially independent and produce offspring. There’s no timetable here for either, which leads me to believe that I’m going to be an old ass dad, and that is all good with me for more reasons than one.

My mom was young when...

In 2011 I ventured into the hype beast that is fantasy sports with zero knowledge of what in the hell I was doing. Starting off that first year, I joined 4 different football leagues to ensure that everything I needed to learn moving forward would be taught to me in the span of one NFL season, which it was. Of the four leagues I was an owner in, I managed to dominate all of them, winning championships in three. The one title that eluded me was the league we’d put together with some of our closest confidantes and is surely the one I’d still to this day trade all the other three ‘ships for. My team, lead by an MVP season from Aaron Rodgers, was clearly the favorite sitting at 11-2 in the final week of the Championship match when I decided that sleeping in on the final Sunday was a great idea. It wasn’t. Rodgers sat Week 17, Matt Flynn threw for 6 touchdowns in his place, and the Cabrini...

To My Beautiful Daughter,

There’s a lot that this world has yet to reveal about itself to you and I wanted to give you a heads up so that it doesn’t break your trajectory or willingness to fight for what you believe in. This world that we were born into, if I may sum it up into one word, is greedy. Everyone wants something out of it, yet very few are willing to give something back. You’ll need to watch out for those that are consistently taking and never returning the favor. I’ve met plenty of their kind throughout the years, some of which blinded me temporarily before I actually noticed what their end game was. It hurt, but let me tell you daughter, I overcame the pain to evolve into someone greater, as will you. You’re going to run into those that were given a head start by society and that isn’t their fault, as the system has always been proven to favor some more than others. Your...

To know me is to love me, unless you have been my roommate, of course. It’s not that I am a messy guy, in fact, it is the exact opposite. A former roommate, who I like to call “The Skateboarding Vampire”, would argue that I have borderline obsessive compulsive disorder, seeing as I cannot and absolutely refuse to live in clutter or filth. He’s a borderline asshole though, so take his opinion with a grain of salt. No matter the rookie prognosis, one must keep his pad clean, not only for myself, but the threat of company is always looming when you are living the lifestyle I have chosen. Honestly, I LOVE cleaning. Turning on the stereo system, bumping some Prince or Curren$y, whichever I’m in the mood for, and a couple hours later the smell of clean in the air before sparking up and relaxing peacefully. That’s just me though. Now, these instructional tips aren’t specifically for the...

Let me preface this by saying that if you are in a happily committed relationship, don’t come meddling around us single folk on your high horse about how this could never work for you and your significant other. I mean, you too have been in a failed union before, right? And your current one has zero guarantee to succeed, as does anything in life, and this may one day be your downfall, you clingy hominid, you. Anyways, the way we have been doing things hasn’t worked, obviously, so let’s try an alternate route to ultimate happiness. Now, hear me out as I make the the case for sporadic communication.

The cellular device was created April 3, 1973 and mankind has not looked back in this field of technology since. It was followed up with the commercialization of the Internet somewhere between 1989-1991, which gave way to instant messenger, personal email, webcams, and eventually social...

I like, not love, the National Basketball Association. So, when they say “this may be one of the greatest seasons we’ve seen in awhile.” I do not believe them, though I am involved in fantasy basketball and I will watch as much of the national broadcasts that my precious time will allow. I do admittedly love Kobe Bean Bryant and DeMarcus “BOOGIE!” Cousins, who are must see TV for me. HUGE Los Angeles Lakers fan here, though I’ll too be rooting for Boogie heavily throughout the 82 game grind that is the regular season, believe that! Anyways, the Warriors championship wasn’t a fluke, the Cavs aren’t a team of destiny, and the Western Conference may be the deepest it’s ever been in history. Also, the Pistons are primed to win 50 games, the Bucks are still two off-seasons away and the hometown Chicago Bulls will score more points under the new regime, but still lose to someone they...

As the great Peter Griffin once (or five hundred, who’s counting?) said, “You know what really grinds my gears?” For me, there are lots of things, but for the sake of this post, let’s begin and end with you damn millennials. Now, according to one source, millennials are person(s) born roughly between the years 1980-2004, which (unfortunately), makes me one of you assholes. By no means am I suggesting that I completely devalue our generation, as we have done spectacular things for the world. However, I will say that I detest a lot of our behavioral trends. We as a whole aren’t all bad, but, we too could be doing better, blazing a more admirable path for the future generation(s), while not being so damn self involved in a time where community is blatantly necessary. So, hear me out, as you damn millennials often despise doing.

Ever play a video game series titled The Sims? Well, if you...