Since that time, I have never uttered aloud any desire to be a professional athlete, at least not in an end of the world, if-I-don’t-make-it-I-should-just-jump-off-the bridge sort of way. Soon thereafter, I also realized that they put their pants on one leg at a time just like me. I stopped trying to get autographs when at age 14, I realized that I was looking eye-to-eye with my heroes and sometimes being mistaken for them by smaller autograph seekers. My parents never acknowledged my realization, but it probably made them feel pretty good, the way that smiling and not saying “I told you so” does when you are right about something. It probably also reinforced for them that their philosophy on parenting was a good one. I chose to warn my kids explicitly. It’s not that I don’t trust my parenting skills like my parents did theirs, but I think times have changed and it needed to be said.

The world in which I was a kid was markedly different than the one that my kids exist in now. There was no 24-hour total sports network. Shoot, there was no 24-hour NEWS network for that matter. Any news, good and bad, you got on a day-to-day basis came in print in your morning paper or from Dan Rather’s voice on the evening news. We were all content with being updated once or twice a day on the world’s happenings, good and bad. In our warped kid world of the ’70s and ’80s, Dr. J and Joe of Montana were held in almost equally high esteem as Jesus of Nazareth. We wanted to be them and would be rendered absolutely speechless if we ever got to meet any of them. Joe and Julius that is. When Michael Jordan came on the scene, some of us weren’t so sure that Nazareth wasn’t a city in North Carolina. His Air-ness was amazing and he could do no wrong.

As time goes by, it appears that his infallibility was only truly in effect while he adorned that coat of many colors, or red, white, and black anyway. Michael is on my mind today, just having watched him at the podium accepting his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Notice that I didn’t use the noun “speech” or the adverb “graciously” in the previous sentence as neither occurred. There was not so much a speech as a public display of one man’s bitterness and dare I say even some insecurity. There was little grace and even far less humility as he felt the need to remind all of us that he was and is still the greatest ball player ever to have laced up some sneakers. He almost had us fooled as he tearfully made his way to the podium, seemingly overwhelmed by the moment, even adding that he had too many people to thank and that he was going to be unable to stick to his promise of walking to the podium, saying “thank you” and walking back to his seat. He commented that he was made to feel uneasy by being termed the greatest basketball player ever, having never competed against Wilt or Jerry West or Bill Russell. That was the end of any attempt at humility though.

Where John Stockton, David Robinson, Vivian Stringer, and Jerry Sloan had complimentary things to say about mentors and coaches that helped them along the way, Michael made it a point to almost chastise the high school coach that decided to cut him from the varsity team as a sophomore saying, “I wanted to make sure you understood. You made a mistake dude.” Stockton had wonderful things to say about his wife and kids, highlighting traits that he admires about each of them individually, all Michael could muster to his own children was, “I wouldn’t want to be you guys.” I wasn’t expecting Michael to make like Barack at the 2004 Democratic convention and be the brilliant orator. I’m a huge fan. I’ve probably seen every televised speaking opportunity or interview he has ever done. If anything, I thought he’d show up with a prepared speech and just read it. When he chose to go off the cuff and speak from the heart, I figured he would give the customary thank yous and be done with it. Unfortunately, Michael took it as a time to make good on some old debt. If you listened to the speech, you probably agree that the payback was quite petty and only stood to make him look bad in his moment.

He spent far too much time recounting stories about run-ins with Jeff Van Gundy, Pat Riley, and Bryon Russell. In addition to his high school coach, he took shots at Bulls GM Jerry Krause who he famously despised publicly on several occasions. He complained about all of the $1000 tickets he had to buy in order to get all of his guests into the ceremony. He even chose to make his high school friend, the Leroy Smith that was kept on the team when he was cut, look bad by comments that basically said that Leroy wasn’t much of a player. Who does that? We all know you’re the greatest, Michael. We know you’re better than Leroy Smith. He needed to hear you belittle him about as much as the rest of us did, especially after you flew him to the ceremony.

Why am I speaking with such incredulity on this matter though? I started out this piece by saying that I stopped idolizing pro athletes long ago and that I had already urged my young kids to do the same. I should’ve seen the signs. This is the same guy that chose not to speak on behalf of a black democratic senatorial candidate in his native North Carolina running against the often racist Jesse Helms, quipping “Republicans buy sneakers too.” On the issue of Nike using sweatshops in Vietnam to make his Air Jordan sneakers, he pleaded ignorance and didn’t seem overly concerned with using his extraordinary fame and influence to do anything about it, saying, “I don’t know the complete situation. Why Should I? I’m trying to do my job. Hopefully, Nike will do the right thing, whatever that might be.”

I guess I was just like that 10 year old kid again, watching him as a freshman at North Carolina, trailing Georgetown in the final minute of the NCAA championship game, hopeful, believing that he would do something special at the end to emerge victorious. I was thinking that although he never did it as a player, he would get the courage to take a stand like the Tommy Smith’s, Bill Russell’s, Dick Allen’s and Jim Brown’s of yesteryear, when athletes saw themselves as part of the cause and not above it. The truth is, Michael, I gave up that dream and stopped worrying about you when I stopped buying anything with your winged logo on it 10 years ago. Oh sure, you’ll always be the measuring stick of greatness on the court, but I’m not naive enough to expect anything further off it. Maybe it would’ve been better just to give us the ‘Thank you’ and walk off like you promised.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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Like any other trade, they break in the new students with a good deal of theory work before they turn them loose on any live bodies. Sometimes she’ll practice styling on that mannequin head that she keeps atop a tripod when I’m visiting, but I was pretty secure in the feeling that we were miles away from my appearance being altered at her hands. This fleeting thought drifting in and out of the chasms of my mind, I’d imagine myself Denzel Washington’s Bleek Gilliam telling her Cynda Williams’ Clarke Betancourt in the Spike Lee classic “Mo Betta Blues”: “Wait…look…Baby…just ’cause we’re seeing each other has nothing to do with…now…I think you’ve got potential, but it takes years not months…,” if ever a trial haircut should come up. She hates that movie, by the way.

But, as any good woman is wont to do on occasion, she threw me a curve the other day. “You should come in on Wednesday and let me wax your chest,” she offered, having just completed that section of the curriculum. Do what? To my what? I had no canned answer prepared for this one and she must’ve known it. While I stuttered and stammered, mind racing and struggling for the words, she started in with the whole psychology bit, suggesting that the end result would really accentuate all of the hard work I’d been putting in at the gym. She was more subtle and downright calculating with the insinuation that I should feel no pressure to go through with it, especially if I couldn’t deal with the pain. See there? She had to take it to manhood. Nevermind that besides the potential pain involved (I too have seen The 40-year-old Virgin), I was struggling with perception issue involved and whether or not this was not just toeing the line or completely crossing the “loofah threshold” (n: The line where “cleaning” oneself becomes “grooming” oneself, and which, once crossed, does not allow a return to the other side. Esquire Magazine, The Vocabulary, March 2009). What’s more? Couldn’t somebody hang the “metrosexual” tag on me then?

That’s okay though. I’m quite secure in my masculinity and neither I, nor any other self-respecting man can back down to a challenge of one’s manhood. “Uh..ok. Sure…,” was the tepid response that came out of my mouth. I dug a little deeper and re-inforced that with, “YEAH, ok…I can do that,” much more bass in my voice this time. And so it was set. I would be getting my chest waxed which shall set into motion all of the events that are to follow, heretofore, in this blog.

Wednesday, 5:30pm
I arrived for my appointment on time, having downed a Fruitista Freeze on the way over to combat the 95 degree heat. They had me sign some sort of waiver at the front desk. No big deal, I thought, they just want a way out if I for some reason am not happy with the end result and try to get upset. Never once did I think that this might be some underlying danger warning. After a few moments I was retrieved from the lobby by Ms. Cosmetologist-in-Training and led to a room where the aestheticians do their thing. I detoured momentarily to the men’s room, suddenly feeling the urge to go. Surely, it was all of the water and that Fruitista Freeze that I sucked down all in an effort to stay properly hydrated during this heat wave.

5:45pm
After some brief Q & A, I was asked to remove my shirt in this rather frigid room with a half a dozen women looking on, and trying to contain their smiles. On a table across the room, there was a lady getting her eyebrows done who looked up long enough and said just loud enough for me to hear, “He’s a big one!” Getting my ear-hustle on a few moments later, I heard her talking about how loud her husband screamed when she had him come in for the same “procedure”.

5:55pm
I again complained about how cold it was, so they brought me a blanket to cover my legs. Recall that it was 95 degrees outside so I was wearing shorts and sandals with my short-sleeved, button-down linen shirt. Maybe it wasn’t that cold and this was just another symptom of the nerves because as they prepped my torso for the festivities that would ensue I was starting to feel like the star of a Flowmax commercial. But I’m a man and I’ve got to keep any whining to a minimum, so I decided to forgo another visit to the men’s room so that they could get this show on the road.

6:05pm
I’ve now been thoroughly coached by the aesthetician in charge, and my girl, who would be her assistant about how things would go down and what I should expect. Funny thing, those expectations. To somebody else, running the stadium steps of the Rose Bowl in their entirety might sound like pure hell, but to me, not so much. I guess the same holds true here, as a room full of women looked on with excitement and anticipation as they administered the hot wax on my stomach. Now, suffice to say that I’m not exactly looking like Teen Wolf lying here on the table with the bright lights beating down on me, but I don’t have the smooth skin of, say, my 9-year-old son either. In a motion so quick as to rival the bat speed of Manny Ramirez the first strip of hair follicles were ripped out of my unsuspecting skin. There was a little numbness. The room got really quiet. I think I’m okay. Oh no, now the nerve endings in that region have come back to life in full force. The collective gasp from all of the ladies in the room was as loud as a sonic boom when after taking a breath, I spoke in a very measured tone. “That wasn’t that bad.” I was lying.

6:30pm
With each application of the wax and subsequent pull, I kept it together. Somehow. “We’re more than halfway done. You’re doing a great job,” I was told. I was on my back staring at the ceiling so I couldn’t tell just how much progress had been made, but tried to figure it out by the fact that they were now up near the pectoral region, one working on my left side while the other worked on my right. The pain was pretty intense at this point as I contemplated what Brother Al Green must’ve felt like during that fateful grits incident. Although I was again imagining myself as Denzel (Private Trip of the 54th Regimen in the classic “Glory” this time, not showing any emotion as he was flogged for some perceived indiscretion), I must not have been doing as good a job as I thought. As I looked around the room, I could see that the giddiness once on the countenances of the ladies looking on in the room had begun to change to looks of concern. At the end of this circuitous gaze, my eyes decided to disobey the direct order and caught a look at my bare torso, which had begun to bear a shade of red that I didn’t know was possible through brown skin. Their credibility was now completely gone. I was now Phil Jackson signaling to Steve Javy for a 20 second timeout. I’d take that bathroom break after all. I had to put on and button up my shirt before heading down the hall. If I didn’t know better I’d swear to you that the navy colored linen was sticking to an open wound as I ambled down the hallway. I psyched myself up in the mirror before returning and told myself that I can do this. I’m a MAN! I refrained from the Tarzanian chest thumping however.

Removing the shirt upon my return felt like gauze being removed in order that said wound might be re-dressed.

6:55pm
They called themselves crossing the proverbial T’s and dotting the proverbial I’s as they again proclaimed “almost done”, swiping waxed strips from around my left nipple and then right in unison. I tried to keep my eyes from rolling back in my head, concentrating with every fabric of my being not to make a sound, and admit weakness in these decreasingly unfriendly confines. I must’ve started to hallucinate because I could swear that I was now Mel Gibson’s William Wallace being told by the torturing hatchet man with the hood on that this pain and suffering would end if I merely pledged allegiance to King Longshanks and asked for mercy. “Mercy, William. Mercy…,” I thought I heard the ladies whispering. I don’t know what my face must’ve looked like to them at this point, but if the score to this horror film were audible its loud, operatic tune would surely have drowned out my silent screams.

She took me to see “The Hangover” after she got out of class, clearly employing the “laughter is the best medicine” theory in an attempt to console me. It hurt to laugh as I sat in the back row of that theater with my shirt completely open and exposed to the conditioned air that I couldn’t really feel anyway.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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I could talk about food in this city for months and it pains me to have to short change must sees like Mulate’s, Cafe Du Monde, or Pat O’Brien’s, but I’d be remiss not to give at least a cursory mention to the rich music scene in this legendary town. Know this about Bourbon Street. It is livelier on Monday night or any other night than most places are on Friday or Saturday night and one big reason is the music. Oh sure, you can get a hurricane to knock you on your tail (Pat O’s perhaps) but you’ll hear so much good music from so many different bands that you’ve never heard of, from so many different musical genres that you’ll wonder why you ever pay to see any of the big names when they come to your town.

For the last 10 years, the Big Easy has had the obligatory House of Blues that most every major metropolis has now. In addition, old standbys like Tipitina’s are a great place to catch a regular performance by the Neville Brothers. The great thing about Bourbon Street and The French Quarter in general is that you need not be very formal about anything. You can literally pop in and out of just about any open bar from which you hear live music being played and dance or just listen free of cover charge. And there are many to choose from, most being literally next door to one another. I dipped into Maison Bourbon, recognizing it from an old postcard that I had with Louis Armstrong parading in front of it and was put at ease by the smooth sounds of the Jamil Sharif Quintet as well as the painted sign on the wall that read simply: Dedicated to the Preservation of Jazz.

I said I didn’t want to spend too much time talking about Bourbon Street so I’ll quickly change to one of my favorite “must-see” spots over in the Uptown district. The Maple Leaf is one of those places that you’d probably speed right past if you didn’t know any better. It doesn’t look like much (on the inside or outside) other than an old, beat down bar (its like that abandoned house where Brad Pitt and Edward Norton lived in Fight Club)on a street that seems to always be under some major renovation. But believe me when I tell you that the pot-hole ridden Oak Street POPS! It might seem ironic that THIS place has a small cover charge ($5-$10) but you won’t be disappointed. A very funky group called Groovesect was holding court on this visit, as people of varying ages and nationalities danced to the syncopated funky rhythms and blues emanating from the saxophone and guitar, bass, and congas based rhythm section being anchored by a hammond b-3 organ. These guys were great, but if you can arrange your trip to be in town at “the Leaf”on a Tuesday, you’ve got to check out the Rebirth Brass Band. I remember my first Rebirth show in this intimate setting the way that I remember the first time I got a late night call from my boys to hurry down and see this new group called the Roots. They are THAT good. Between sets, step outside to enjoy some “real nawlin’s food” at Jacque-imo’s (who was barbecueing in the street this time and was serving up boiled crawfish on the sidewalk last time I was down on Oak Street) or into the studio/gallery across the street featuring the very colorful and musically inspired works of artist Frenchy.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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Feeling halfway ashamed and fearing that I had indeed been exposed as a Yankee or whatever Southern folk refer to all of the rest of us as that aren’t from down their way. Actually, can Californians be Yankees? That’s food for thought for another day and another discussion perhaps. I tried to pull it together and muster up a response that would simultaneously convey my own incredulity as well as restore my good name in the eyes of this cabby that I would never see again after the 10 minute ride back to the Northwest Terminal at the Memphis International Airport.

“It was iiight…,” I said, putting a little extra “down-home” on it in hopes that the condescending gaze being laid upon me through the rear view mirror would ease up a bit. “Wasn’t the best fried chicken I’ve ever had, but it was better than eating another burger or something at the airport. The chess pie was pretty good though,” I reported, having no reference point as this was my first experience with this Southern specialty. I was getting a little more comfortable now, feeling like I had restored the balance in the vehicle back to respectable levels. Why had I allowed Tony, with his gold-toothed sneer, in his musty little taxi with torn upholstery in the back seat where I sat, to so severely put me on the defensive and make me feel so small? Was it really that serious? Actually, it was.

Fried chicken is serious business at my house and always has been. My kids look forward to my fried chicken the way I look forward to sinking my teeth into a heavenly serving of guava crème brulee whenever my itinerary finds me in the Caribbean. Again, a story for another time, but suffice it to say that I not only was not a crème brulee fan previously, I can’t order the stuff anywhere else on the planet because I am convinced that all non-guava varieties will pale in comparison. But we were talking about chicken. My kids brag about it to their friends and beg me to make it whenever they catch me wondering about what to cook for dinner. Were it not for my health consciousness and weariness of a diet that allows for fried food any more than occasionally, they might get their wish. I was the same way about the chicken that my dad fried and especially that of my Uncle Levi (my dad’s next eldest sibling among 9). So irresistible was my Uncle Levi’s (he insists that you address him as “Uncle”) chicken that I once nearly ate myself out of the starting line-up of one of my high school basketball games. Even right now, I can almost taste the blend of 33 herbs and spices that soaked into the best golden brown skin your lips will ever touch. Okay, so it’s probably not 33, but it’s at least 3 times better than what the Colonel does with his 11.

My cousin Billy (Levi’s son) and I played on the same team and he had invited a group of us over to hang out and relax as was our ritual at some team member’s house before every game. Billy’s decision to heat up some of last night’s leftover chicken proved to almost cost us an important game as myself and another of our big men were way past lethargic during the first half. At one point midway through the second quarter, I begged the coach to remove me, running right past our bench and straight for the locker room latrine. I am happy to report that while it didn’t taste nearly as good on the way up as it had on the way down, we did rally for victory late in the game.

The awkward silence following my last statement to ol’ Tony was becoming deafening. It was bearable for the few moments while I was recollecting all of the monumental fried chicken experiences I’ve ever had, trying to quickly rank them as if Tony were the supervisor and I the grunt worker having been given the task as an action item on a deadline. His occasional check of the rear view mirror with what my paranoia deemed a disapproving glance, as Johnny “Guitar” Watson wailed through the static of the FM radio dial on this rainy evening, told me that time was up.

“I was just at the Lorraine Hotel,” I said, trying to break the ice that had formed since that initial exchange, trying to inform him that I had worked up my fried chicken appetite walking around at the Lorraine Hotel, infamous site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and now home to the National Civil Rights Museum. His eyes didn’t seem to leave the rainy roadway as he drove up Front Street and headed toward the freeway.
“I said I was just at the Lorraine Hotel,” I repeated, a little louder this time. This at least made him look up and nod. Just when I was about to sink back into the seat of his mid-80s model Caprice Classic sedan and give up, Tony spoke.

“Now Jack Parrrrr-deez has got some chicken!” his eyes off in some distant euphoric place now, perhaps recounting his last experience the way I did with Uncle Levi’s above, but more like he was remembering the prettiest, pig-tailed, bobby-sox wearing co-ed in all of Central High School’s class of 1963.

“Oh yeah?” I said, leaning forward again.

“Yeah their homemade biscuits and that chicken…whoooooooooo!”

Whoooooooo needed no translation. In fact, my Ph.D in slang linguistics tells me that there are degrees of whooooooooo and that this one was surely of the head shaking, exhaling and thigh slapping variety. We rode in silence for the last couple of minutes as he pulled off the freeway and into the airport, both sporting contented smiles as if we had collaborated in polishing off a bucket of Jack Pirtle’s Fried Chicken (take out only on Jackson Avenue in Memphis. I had some trouble finding it online going by Tony’s pronunciation, but managed). “Yeah…Jack Parrrrrr-deez,” Tony mumbled again as I paid the fare and got out of the cab.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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As it turns out, something did happen. It was about a year ago now, but apparently, there was an incident involving a certain laptop that went missing for several hours while everyone frantically searched for it. Naturally, it turned up, sitting right on a table as if somebody had thrown a newspaper and a jacket on top of it. Big deal, somebody lost a laptop. Actually, this laptop contained all of the personal information of everyone that had signed up for the program to that point. No one knows if any of the data was compromised, and surely they have taken some extra security measures to ensure that such a travesty ever puts the confidential personal data of so many in jeopardy again.

Just to be sure, I waited about a year after that before going “all-in” and getting my own Clear card. (I wish I had exercised such patience with my Blackberry Storm, but that’s another story). I had some time on my hands and was also about to have my passport re-newed, so I figured it would be a perfect time to do it. Clear is authorized and regulated by the Transportation Safety Administration (not that these guys are above Keystone Kops half the time, but…) so it’s supposed to be a legitimately secure place for my personal information to be stored.

So here’s how it’s supposed to work. Once in possession of your Clear card, you are to bypass the long stationary line of folks that is the security check point and proceed to the Clear kiosks. Once there, you will insert your card, have your fingerprints scanned and your iris (eyes) scanned and verified. Once you get the green light, a friendly Clear Agent will meet and greet you and shuffle you through while your carry-on is x-rayed. If you’re like me, you wondered how they know that the fingerprints are yours. Just like I’ve always wondered how they determine who is a suspect by lifting a print off of a weapon. It’s not like they just have a copy of everyone’s fingerprints lying around for just such an occasion. Well, naturally, you have to provide the prints. In my case, it was voluntarily in order to complete this process, but in the back of my mind I had a twisted daydream that I was caught out there like Sandra Bullock in “The Net” and some evil villains were manipulating the personal information that I provided to the Clear people. But I got over it.

If you decide to pursue a Clear card, you’ll first take a few minutes to fill out the application online. Once that portion is completed, you must visit a Clear location so that they can verify your picture ID and fingerprint you and scan your retina. Luckily for you, the kiosk is made for folks of more average stature, so you won’t have to bend down like you’re doing the limbo to line up your eyes for the scan. I chose to go to the Oakland Airport location about mid-day, well after the morning rush was over and took care of everything in no time flat. I got my card in the mail about a week later.

At this point, I wouldn’t say that rushing out to pay the $199 annual fee is absolutely critical for the majority of people out there. If you are traveling quite frequently, it’s a nice-to-have to ensure peace of mind and save some time at a handful of the nation’s airports. The folks at Clear are working to add more airports and other venues as well (some stadiums like San Francisco’s Candlestick Park and Denver’s Invesco Field are among the early adopters). I’m slated to try it out soon, so I’ll have to let you know if its all that it’s cracked up to be.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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Oh sure, this makes perfect sense on paper. My income minus the mortgage payment equals not a lot left at the end of the month. However, my income plus your income make that mortgage a whole lot less daunting. I’m all for saving a buck and tightening the belt wherever possible, but the roommate thing gets about as much consideration as filling in for Roy opposite Siegfried in the show with the tiger would. NONE. I could probably come up with a million excuses as to why I won’t be getting a roommate (my place is too small, there’s only one parking space in the garage, I might have to put dishes in the lower cabinets so other people could reach them…), but the main thing that will keep me from getting a roommate are the experiences I’ve already had.

I’ve grown accustomed to the solitude that comes with living alone. Having a roommate puts that in jeopardy. On those rare Saturdays that one of my kids does not have an early game, it’s nice to be able to sleep in and not have to be awakened by the rustlings of someone else. I had a roommate in college that liked to do his laundry at 7am on Saturday morning. No big deal, right? It’s not like the laundry machines were in our room. What made it bad was his insistence on counting his quarters for laundry by first dumping them out on his desk, and then dropping them back in his change jar one by one. This sparked more than a few altercations.

Then of course, there’s the issue of company. Having that extra person around can really make entertaining overnight guests a challenge. Oh sure, you can set up an intricate system of signs and signals that alert your roomie on how to proceed, but if they fail to execute the agreed upon course of action without military precision, you can really have quite the snafu. Like the time when a former roommate walked past me in the hall bathroom while I was shaving, and proceeded to venture into my room to look for something of his that he thought might be in my room. No, brotha man didn’t ask if I’d seen it, or even if he could venture through my closed door to start his search. It wasn’t until I heard the shriek of shear horror come from the young lady with half a sheet scarcely covering only parts of her left side that I realized what had happened. Somehow, “My bad” didn’t manage to make the situation any better.

On the flip side of that, who among us has never come home from a long day, barely able to keep your eyes open, only to find that ribbon or rubber band on the doorknob letting you know that you better get lost for another couple of hours (or minutes, whichever is applicable) until the coast is clear? Even worse, in those situations where your place was big enough to have a living room or some other place to sit and wait while enjoying the sounds of the slow jam tape that your roommate borrowed from you, you had to endure somebody else’s additions to the soundtrack while you tried unsuccessfully to get comfortable, folding yourself like an accordion on a sofa upon which only a toddler could reasonably lay down.

Okay, it’s confession time. I wasn’t always the model roommate either. When one of my roommates would get fabulous care packages from his mama back in the Big Easy and opted not to share with either myself or our other roomie, we took matters into our own hands, often going through great pains to make sure that the amount of pralines in the can always looked the same. I even rolled up some paper towels to prop them up from the bottom one time. He owed us though. We were not only roommates but teammates. (Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he didn’t share, probably mad about us failing to convert on some of his assists or something).

Brother Barack, please lead us out of this financial mire because I don’t want to relapse back to my praline pilfering ways. I’m not cut out for roommates anymore. I’ll save my nickels. I promise.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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The PBS stations usually do a good job with broadcasting some entertaining documentaries for the occasion, creating that rarest of instances where I am actually rushing to get my remote and sit on the couch attentively during prime time. This time around, one particularly moving piece was “Looking for Lincoln” put together by notable scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. In it, Mr. Gates explores the mythology of our 16th president while simultaneously discussing ol’ Honest Abe in both a 19th Century as well as a 21st Century framework.

For those that haven’t heard it before, Lincoln didn’t exactly abolish slavery with the stroke of his pen because he was just a swell guy. In fact, a closer look at some of the speeches he made, especially some from the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates about the matter of slavery, reveal a much less flattering side of him. For instance, although Lincoln sided in favor of blacks with respect to whether or not the Declaration of Independence applied to them (Douglas said it didn’t), he did not necessarily believe in equality of the races.

“There’s a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the races from living together on terms of social and political equality and I as much as any other man am in favor of the having the superior position assigned to the white race.” Lincoln is on record as saying.

Acclaimed author/historian Lerone Bennett’s interview in this piece is particularly poignant, stating that he went from holding Abe as a one of his childhood heroes to a markedly different position after his discoveries of such statements. Bennett reminds us that while “the greatest generations of white people ever produced in this country (1830-1860)” were moving blacks on the Underground Railroad, speaking out against slavery and calling for equal rights between, Lincoln was silent during that period.

Another popular sentiment expressed with regard to ol’ Abe was that, at best, he was a reluctant politician pulled along by monumental events like the Civil War. I’ll throw conflicted into that mix as well. To look past the sometimes quite subtle and often deft maneuvers that he executed en route to Washington and the agility with which he negotiated an incredibly tumultuous political climate would be akin to walking by the color purple in a field and failing to notice it. And that, as Shug Avery so eloquently stated, just “pisses God off.” Other than our man Barack, perhaps no other presidential candidate before or since has been as brilliant a tactician and been so effective in marketing himself to the masses as Lincoln, having had hundreds of portraits of himself done to project the most positive and inspiring image possible.

He was a man in transition to be sure, ascending from the aforementioned denigrating comments on race and equality, to a more moderate almost Garvey-esque solution involving Liberia and Panama. “My first impulse would be to free all the slaves and send them to Liberia… to their own native land…,” he once said during his presidency. It’s probably necessary to tack an adverb on to the word conflicted that I used early: deeply conflicted. On the one hand, he was trying to keep the country from splintering apart and on the other, there was his conscience. “If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong,” he is also credited with saying.

Oddly enough, his strife invoked images of Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules in “Pulp Fiction.” (What? You didn’t think that my “-ness” wouldn’t come just because I’m writing about something serious, did you?) Don’t worry, it’s not the “What ain’t no country I ever heard of. They speak English in What?…SAY WHAT AGAIN!” Jules (although maybe you could picture him snapping back at the diminutive Stephen Douglas, after making a point in their debates. “Oh…you were finished! Well allow me to retort!”) or even the “Mmmmm…that IS a tasty burger. Vincent…ever have a Big Kahuna Burger?” Jules either. Perhaps I was flipping channels during the commercials and caught Tarantino’s classic for the umpteenth time on A&E or something. I don’t know, but that’s who I thought of while watching “Looking for Lincoln.”

I pictured Lincoln at this crossroads, knowing that he must do right by abolishing slavery to some degree, but fully aware of the very volatile state of affairs in his midst as the Nation was on the verge of tearing itself apart. I t was as if, like Jules, he had just had this incredible epiphany and was ruminating aloud as he and his right hand man Seward sipped on their favorite single malt.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” he mused, reflecting on the death and destruction of the Civil War, perhaps inhaling the stench of the corpses at Gettysburg. “Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children,” he continued, pondering the slavery issue. “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. I been sayin’ that sh** for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your a**,” he went on, perhaps eluding, regrettably to his edict to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and also imprison 18,000 Confederate sympathizers without trial, in a “W”-esque move. “But I saw some shi**this mornin’ made me think twice. Now I’m thinkin’: it could mean you’re the evil man. And I’m the righteous man,” turning toward Jefferson Davis, who is also taking a load off (if you’ll allow me to re-write a most improbable bit of history),taking another sip and looking out over the fields at Gettysburg, taking a deep breath and continuing, “…or it could be you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. I’d like that. But that sh** ain’t the truth.” Pausing for dramatic effect as only Samuel L. can (and Abe probably could too), he probably took another sip and said, “The truth is you’re the weak. And I’m the tyranny of evil men.”

Turning the bottom up to get the last drop, he concluded. “But I’m tryin’,…. I’m tryin’ real hard to be a shepherd.”

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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You might say that I’ve saved the best for last, although any one of these places would’ve made my week in any other place. Arguably, the best food on the island, “Coyaba” was to be the crown jewel in my tour of Provo restaurants.

As it turns out, “Coyaba” is an Arawak Indian word that means “heavenly.” That this restaurant was given this is a name is oh so apropos. First, however, I have a confession to make. Similar to the way that I’ve often got more month left at the end of my money back home, I was in a similar pickle here. I had one night left, and still had two must-visit places on my agenda to choose from. But how do you choose? Do you skip the best restaurant on the island so that you can get to the one place that is the unanimous choice by the locals, “Smokey’s”, for the real live Turks Islander experience? You’ve already gone to several other outstanding restaurants with million-dollar views. On the other hand, do you skip the only true local experience when you’re a person that lives for that kind of thing? A lesser foodie might have made a tough decision and chosen one. I got an early start.

The service at “Coyaba,” like the rest of the places was impeccable, but somehow even a cut above. It was a fairly small place but it seemed like there wait staff numbered in the hundreds. Servers and waiters were coming and going from all directions all the time. One of them brought me one of the chef’s creations while I contemplated the menu choices. It seemed simple enough, baby carrots, slices of red peppers, and pita bread wedges placed just so around a dipping sauce. The pita bread wedges were warm, however, and the sauce was out of this world. I asked 3 different members of the wait staff what was in it just to make sure that I didn’t forget. It was a white sauce (well, i think it was white, but couldn’t really tell by candlelight) made from cream cheese, sour cream, and coconut, but somehow tasted like honey butter…but BETTER! I think I could’ve left right after tasting this and been satisfied.

I ordered a lobster bisque that seemed to be the gold standard for lobster bisques around the world, served in all of its steamy perfection in a large white bowl with colorful designs around its rim. I accompanied this with a hearty duck confit salad and told them to keep the pitas and dipping sauce coming. It was really a shame that I couldn’t stay longer, but even in that short time, I was very impressed. It’s a good thing I did leave though, because it surely would’ve broken the bank. As it was I left there $74 lighter and hadn’t even peeked at the entree menu yet.

So that you’re not brow-beaten by my verbosity any longer, I’ll summarize some other nice spots to drop in on if you make it down to Provo. Drink in these pictures to wash it all down…

Lunch/Casual Dinner:
Mango Reef- a great bar and grill spot right on the beach with a pleasant dining area that makes a good soup/salad and sandwich.

Da Conch Shack- as authentic as you can be without being authentic, but deceptively good. The Curry Conch is a must. Bring your camera because the views don’t get any better than this.

Corner Cafe- A great sandwich shop attached to the grocery store off the main drag. Try the prosciutto if you go there a few times, but definitely do not skip the Corner Club or the Smoked Turkey Club.

Ports of Call/Dive Bar- these are right near the Caicos Cafe and they are your basic low scale eateries that still do a pretty good job on the grub, make a stiff drink and still charge you like you’re at the Ritz.

Smokey’s- This is the spot where the locals eat. If you like your common rib shack, jook joint, mama’s-kitchen-soul-food-spot in any rural part of the Southern United States, this is your spot. Surprisingly, there aren’t any $3 entrees, but if you haven’t noticed by now, the economics on this island are all screwed up. Wednesday is Fish Fry night and the parking lot is the see and be seen spot for the brothas that like to play the funky beats out of the back of their jeeps.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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The only reasonably priced meal that I ate during my 8 days in Provo was the very first one at “Hemingway’s On the Beach.” Every other meal absolutely broke the bank, but at least the food was very good. “Hemingway’s” does salads, sandwiches and burgers very well, and with a view to die for. You’ll notice that will be a common theme here. The seating is largely outdoors, except for a few tables near the little open-air room by the bar. I was amused by the fact that the people that had sat near me on the plane were at an adjacent table. All of us feigned indifference, pretending not to notice one another and blend in as if all of this decadence were old hat.

I was let in on a little secret amongst the residents of this place. Discussing something as trivial as the weather is pointless in Turks and Caicos. The weather is ALWAYS good and it almost never rains (except for 2 of the 8 days that I was around…and the rare hurricane). “So we talk about the food,” they explained. There is an amazing dining experience to be had nightly. In the resort part of town, this is an understatement. Nearly everything is a five-star establishment, or at least similarly priced. The first night that we were not in the office burning the midnight oil and eating pizza or chinese food, I ventured out to a place called “Coco Bistro.”

Hidden down a little dirt driveway and surrounded by palm trees, “Coco Bistro” looked unassuming enough. From the outside it was a quaint little brightly-colored house with some rocks creating a pathway to the front door. Once inside, it doesn’t look like much but a bar with a very small dining area until you realize that this is actually just the waiter’s and bus boy’s station. The dining area is outside under a canopy of coconuts, palm trees, and starlight that is perhaps one of the most romantic settings you can imagine. I was dining alone, but this was not lost on me as they set the white napkin on my lap and handed me a menu. For some reason, I was in the mood for something mildly Italian, so I had some scallops and pasta. Absolutely delicious!

My next experience was Grace Bay Club’s “Anacaona.” As with most locales on this island, this place could be summed up in one word: Spectacular. Dining alone again, I sat at the 90 foot long Infiniti Bar that seems to continue right on into the water where I could still order from the restaurant’s full dinner menu. The outdoor dining area (again, not a risk here since it rarely rains) was outlined by tiki torches which were quite striking as they accompanied the moon in dimly lighting the white table-clothed settings. Another nice visual touch were the brightly colored, yet elegant chairs. The appetizers here were too enticing to skip and I even lost my composure and ordered two of them in the Conch Chowder (made with cherry pepper and aged rum) and Crab Assortment (blackened Alaskan King crab with tomato marmalade, lump crab tempura, and king crab salad with creole salsa).

I opted against wine and instead indulged in one of their specialty rum-based cocktails. At a bar like this, how could you not order something? For my entree, I went to an old standby, Chilean Sea bass, that chefs Joel Rheaume and Eion Laird clearly “put their foot in.” I had been warned about the dessert and made sure to save room. Let’s not kid ourselves, anytime somebody has a warm chocolate centered cake that brings back fond memories of the Godiva chocolate cake at “Mortons,” I’m all in…whether you have to air lift me out of there or not. This one did not disappoint.

The next night it was on to the “Caicos Café” which I would’ve tried a few nights earlier had I not taken a left instead of a right and walked way down the street before somebody set me straight. When I finally made it on that night, the kitchen was closed. The great thing about being 6′7″ is that people don’t usually forget you (unless of course, you’re a criminal and you WANT to go unnoticed so that you can stay out of reach of Johnny Law) and they greeted me accordingly when I did finally dine there. “You made it back!” the hostess exclaimed upon my return down the walkway of multicolored gravel and up the steps. I showed up in shorts and sandals here and felt just fine about it. Actually, you can do that at most of these places but at this one especially. It definitely has an island feel, but the menu has a sort of French/Mediterranean twist to it.

Of course the seafood is great, and I chose to partake in a crab salad. The portions are huge here, so you don’t feel nearly as bad when the bill comes, and you’re definitely full. This place wasn’t nearly as swanky as “Anacaona,” but somehow, the bill was almost as much. Don’t come to this island on a budget. Upon that much we can be certain.

Next I hit “Bella Luna” for some outstanding Italian fare. I hate to keep calling everything spectacular (it kind of takes away from the word, like when actors and actresses call each other “amazing” whenever they are on the red carpet at awards shows) but it was. The food was quite good, though not the best Italian I’ve ever had, but coupled with the ambience it gets a definite thumbs up from me. I got there about 10 minutes before closing time and was still treated like a first class guest, and greeted with some peligrino and bruschetta almost immediately. Go ahead and kick me now for not bringing my camera to this one. The dining room sits atop a second floor patio overlooking a palm-tree lined courtyard accented with beautiful flowers. If you’ve got the loot and a date, you could win major points for booking reservations at this place. But then again, you’re probably way ahead if you’ve got a date with you on this island…

STAY TUNED FOR PART THREE…

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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I started each day at the Seaside Cafe, which was my hotel’s (Ocean Club West) seaside/poolside restaurant. The very friendly staff was always ready to whip up some eggs, French toast, or pancakes on the double. Since daylight was scarce given my work schedule, I was usually coming from my morning jog on the beach when I placed my order here.

I made like Rocky and Apollo, running down the beach barefooted. It was a spirited little jaunt through the pristine white sand. Running on the beach is always interesting because you feel like you’re running with one leg shorter than the other. The good thing is that if you’re running up-and-back, it all balances out. I made sure to apply some sun screen (yeah, i know…crazy, huh? I never got a sunburn until I was about 30, and so I use the stuff now) and get properly hydrated before I got caught out there in this bright sunshine and humidity.

Although, as humidity is so apt to do sometimes, it started to rain shortly after I took off down toward Club Med. It was a warm and comforting rain. It wasn’t that Keith Sweat, go outside and cry in the rain kinda rain, it was more like that “Soul For Real”, candy-coated, Carl Thomas video type raindrops that just made you wanna smile and be out there. When it stopped, the air was still fresh and clean.

I ran for about 45 minutes and then enjoyed a proper cool down, out in the elements style. You can’t really beat this kind of cool down, although the water is incredibly warm. It’s almost bath tub warm! Your muscles cease to ache. Your mind ceases to ache, and you feel no pain. The ocean elixir that is the Caribbean Sea at Grace Bay soothes in a way that no man-made salve could ever hope to do. I actually ended up taking a nice little swim, drifting, dreaming, in the azure blue while gazing up at the sky, floating on my back. Life is good.

I found it very difficult to put finger on what exactly Turk Islander culture is. I heard no signature music or ate any really unique signature dish. I was unable to detect a particular accent that is consistent amongst the locals. But who are the locals? There are only about 30,000 people in this country and many of them are expatriates. Usually, I can step outside the hotel and be right up in whatever the locals are into. Not so in this place. Everything is very tidy here where I stayed. It’s all very well manicured. The grounds of my hotel are absolutely immaculate. There aren’t a lot of people around anywhere. I don’t think I waited in line anywhere. Well, I didn’t, but I did see some folks waiting in a long line as I peered in through the glass door of the bank while using the ATM.

I didn’t have much contact with any natives. Sure, I chit-chatted with some of the locals that work at the restaurants and hotels in my surrounding area, but nothing of any depth. No one has seemed too eager to talk about their island. This seems almost absurd to me. In point of fact, nowhere but the United States of America do I ever hear less fervor when a citizen is talking about their birthplace. Sure, you might get a guy from French Lick, Indiana that may have some interesting facts to share about the town from which Larry Bird hailed, but very rarely will you talk to somebody that wells up with pride and plays up all of the finer points of the United States as a whole (New Yorkers notwithstanding). I had my most interesting conversations with the expats that I was working with and they offered their often very educated analysis on why things are the way that they are here, and shared their experiences about not being made to feel that they belong here.

Almost overwhelmingly, the people that I have come across on this island are from somewhere else, and I’m not just talking about the white expats from Canada and the UK (this is a British Territory). I thought it would be a fair assumption that the majority of the black people on the island would be from Turks and Caicos. I’m not sure of any actual numbers, but I can tell you that I asked waiters and waitresses if they had lived here their whole life (I couldn’t fix my mouth to ask them what I considered to be a silly question: where are you from?) and most of the time they said something other than Turks and Caicos. In point of fact, they were most often Jamaican. Second on the list were Filipinos. Yes, from the Philippines, you know, since that’s so close to here. What’s up with that?

One story I got was that the actual natives don’t have a track record for being the greatest employees on the planet. So much so, that the Margaritaville chain allegedly flies in the majority of its employees from Jamaica for the 3 days a week that the cruise ships dock in the islands, and then flies them home to Jamaica. Why would they do that? Word has it that it runs even deeper than work ethic. The big companies that put most of the money into the island (hotels, resorts, and big chains like Margaritaville) want to sell an image. Sadly, since most people’s image of the Caribbean is for people to wear dreadlocks and speak like Jamaicans, that’s what these companies want them to get. Since, as I mentioned above, the locals’ accent is not a universal thing (apparently there were 4 different dialects going back hundreds of years) they can’t package that up in a manner that they deem suitable for tourist consumption.

It seems crazy, until you really take a look at the resort side of town. It is ridiculously expensive. There are neither chain restaurants nor fast food options to choose from. Everything is pretty much a five star establishment. Stay tuned for part two of this to hear about the more than memorable dining.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.

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