Happy face! Shook the haters! Path is clear.
The evidence is in since 2020….God is real, he is powerful and if you believe in him, he’ll bless your path like you’ve never seen. Why am I only noticing since 2020? Because I was in “transition” from out of worldly living from 2019 going back. I mentioned in another post how 2020 was the best year for Six10, but I didn’t give it enough context:
In 2019, I was in a state of flux, of hustlemania and out of a relationship that went sideways in late 2018. Let’s start there first:
Kacean Phillips, the beautiful yaad gyal that formerly owned Jamaican Homestyle Cuisine on Killingsworth across from NoPo Library and Jeff. I met her in a interesting way….from quickly deading a attempt to start a relationship with another woman who worked at the library. That woman was tall, beautiful, well built, half breed (black and swedish) that was a laid back, cool adult that I thought had some afrocentricity about herself (because most black/white mixed people in PDX tend to go hard in the paint about their African heritage over their Euro), but I was mistaken when we had a conversation one day about Black Portland and she mentioned “I don’t get along with most black folks” without me even asking. To me, that was her planting her flag that ‘I hang around mostly whites and you’ll ned to get used to that’. So…I didn’t have an aversion to my fellow caucasian citizens of Po, but prior to 2014, that was the majority of folks that was in my circle and I grew tired of that culture and needed to reconnect and support my own (I meannn, I did grow up in East Oakland, CA which, when I was young, was almost 40% black). She turned me right off with that statement and we just remained friends. So after stepping out the library from saying hi to her, I was hungry and had heard of JHC but was more familiar with Yaad Style on Fremont and MLK. When I crossed the street and approached the door, a toddler darted out and was running towards the street. I quickly snatched him up and walked back in with him. When the mother behind the counter saw me with him she thanked me and said if she takes her eyes off him for one second he’ll take off because he’s so curious about outside. His older brother is usually there to watch him but not today. The other thing she said and it seemed to amaze her, was how the kid seemed comfortable in my arms because “he never lets anyone he doesn’t know pick him up!”. I just smiled and said “I guess I just have that positive vibe maan.” in my weakest Jamrock accent. She giggled but I saw a slight sparkle in her eye that was familiar.
The food (oxtails, plantain, peas n rice and Sorel) was on point! This was my new fave. Yaad Style was decent, but they served me some strange tasting peas n rice one visit and I made that my last. So Kacy started seeing me around a lot more because even though I lived in Inner SE, I was up around Inner NE all the time, doing business, hangin with my guy Fain at his food truck (Southern Kitchen PDX on Mississippi and Fremont) and other endeavors. I was dedicated to being around my folks in many ways. As time went by and visits to her restaurant started to be longer, got familiar with her young boys (13 and 2), we started developing a real kinship to each other and come June 2017 we started officially dating. It really wasn’t my style to take on a woman with young kids…but something in me knew (God, but I didn’t know it at the time) it was time to be a father figure. There are so few in our community. She saw how open her kids were to me also and wanted this relationship. There was a caveat: she had very recently divorced the young boy’s (Kudjo) father after going through a physically violent relationship that put her in the hospital. She was going through mental therapy sessions and was scarred by this but moving forward. Baby daddy also had half ownership of the restaurant and she had just finished a grueling legal process of buying him out. The man was a wicked jobless bum that thought the world of himself. She asked me if I was ready to deal with this package and I gave her a resounding yes. I knew I fit in with this family and I wanted to make plans and guide them to better times. They lived in a small 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment in a shady complex up on Kills and 52nd. Every time I came to visit, there’d be YNs hanging out front on the stairwell, walkway, parking lot, etc. smokin, drinkin. Did not like their vibe at all and when available, I always escorted her and the kids home from the restaurant because of this. My job was only 2 miles from the restaurant and I got off about an hour after she closed. Knowing the heaviness of what she went through and the effects it can cause, I made it a mission to make her feel like a woman and to treat the kids to as much as I could to what they’ve never experienced….like something as simple as spending time at the coast. I couldn’t believe it when she told me that they had only been to the coast 1 time and that was before Kudjo was born and before she met the bum. In our time together, we went to Newport, Seaside, Astoria and Long Beach, WA (which I love because it’s off the beaten path and you can park directly onto the beach). We rented nice hotels and just had a good time being us four vs the world.
It only took about 8 months before the ‘onion started peeling itself’. Her tone with me would get real tense when she was mad at something and that tone was the same she used with her sons. That wasn’t going to fly with me. That started a change in ‘casual me’ to where I would snap right back. I later had to remind myself that Caribbean and African people tend to talk to each other in a aggressive tone. I had forgotten about witnessing that in my own godmother, who knew me since I was 13. Her husband was American and used to get frustrated. I actually talked to him when I started dating her and he semi-warned me that they get very territorial about things, get possessive, etc. But they can also be the most nurturing and kindest people you’ve ever met. It counterbalances. So I kind of breezed through that advice and didn’t think about the darker side (staying optimistic I guess). We started arguing about small things and eventually those small things bubbled over into a point where I didn’t want to see her anymore. I sat in on two therapy sessions with her and appreciated the steps the therapist had setup for her, but did she carry it over into life? Not really. By the time Fall of 2018 came around, I was at the end of the trail with that relationship. And I hated it because I had such a close connection with Kudjo. He would love letting me take him places, just me and him. I was truly his father. I really regret letting him go, but my mentality and patience was being tested with this woman and it was best for me to step off rather than get into something that I would regret even harder. I think I see where the baby daddy got to the violent part, but I DON’T condone that action. I left on a month long visit to Kenya that September and our last time seeing each other was so lackluster and divided. Neither one of us said it’s over. We just knew in our minds and left it at that. Of course I got torched on her IG page without saying my name…but everybody knew who she was talking about. It’s all good though.
2019 was a thud of a year perfomance-wise. I had recurring clients all year and 2 year long projects going. One was The Lonely Hearts reality series, about 2 Black girl’s love life episodes that were funny, introspective and lesson learning. Coco and Mashavu…2 extremely beautiful women that were living a relationship challenged life. I had a lot of fun shooting these episodes. First one was shot at Top Golf in Beaverton in February (damnn it was cold!) and ended in the Vancouver Mall with Mash’s boyfriend buying a engagement ring for her. We shot mostly on location at various venues, houses, restaurants (including the aforementioned JHC), my home studio, my living room. The other project was a live streamed podcast called Analyze This with Eric Allen. This was a hilarious but serious talkshow centered around mental healthcare (something that is seriously lacking in the state of Oregon). It also featured interviews with local entrepreneurs and mental therapists. It was co-hosted by his wife most times and some of those episodes were funny as hell. Both of these projects didn’t pay much but kept most bills paid. In between time, I drove big rigs for Oregon Food Bank on a on-call basis and did the same for IATSE 28, the local stagehand union. THAT was one of the best jobs I ever worked. It was so interesting how arena shows were setup from scratch (after the NBA setup was removed and seat racks pushed back). Toughest setup I ever did as a Carpenter and Video Rigger was the Carrie Underwood. Omg, her stage set was so elaborate and surrounded almost the whole floor area with walk arounds and separate ministages that required serious team muscle to assemble. I was physically beat after that show. Loudest show ever? Travis Scott. Whoa. We usually setup, went home and came back hours later to strike. On this occasion, like most, I was on bike. When I was coming around the backside of the Convention Center, coming up NE Lloyd Blvd, I could hear the deep bass kicks from Travis’ show. I was blown away as I crested the little hill and passing thru the Max train crossing. By the time I got into the access/loading area, my lungs were vibrating to the music. It was nuts. I walk into the sidestage view of the front row and the kids are all over each other in a frenzy while the bass is shredding their future eardrums. His setup was crazy too. He had a looped track roller coaster that ran down the middle of the stage. His touring hands were the only ones allowed to set that up because of the strict OSHA compliance. I learned so much from that job. It was a great working environment that I enjoyed coming to. Coworkers had great attitudes and were so willing to help newbies. Foremen were awesome and didn’t need to be hardasses to make sure we worked. Well, 2 of the 3 were. I also did theater stagehandling too. I actually enjoyed that even more because of the complex setup in a much smaller space. The routines were leftover from 2 centuries, meaning a choreographed application that involved a rope and bricks system suspended from way up top, for balancing and lifting. I learned the different kind of security rope knots to tie. The crew was often served a buffet dinner for some show budgets, we were praised by a few artists post-show (Timberlake, Carrie, Michael Buble and WWE wrestlers). It was really enjoyable and paid nicely. I wish I kept in touch with a lot of those good folks.
I worked those 4 gigs all the way into 2020. I also did some one-off video productions, sound mixer and media presenter at a live stage show. It was a decent year. But I was alone. Alone in levels of friendships (I had cutoff a lot of people in my circle), no girlfriend. No true base of faith (yet). I was just living. I loved my schedule and independence. My last job I ever did for Open Signal (my last FT job) was instructing a Waseda University production cohort in July. Every 2 years this Japanese university student crew would fly over to Portland and have a month long inteniary that included this fun activity. That year was shooting a short doc on the Portland Timbers at the stadium. We had all the field video gear out there, being news feature reporters and crew. I love teaching media. I enjoyed learning a little Japanese, getting to know the student’s upbringing. We’d show each other on Google Maps where we grew up. Most of them knew good english, but some needed their chaperone translator. Good times.
2020 came and I really felt it was time to start doing things different to have more impactful and more favorable outcomes. Business was decent but I was still renting a nice place in inner SE, on 10th and Powell. Great neighborhood (except for the 24 hour Pancake House, that I hated so much, because of it’s drunk, loud and fight club type clientele on the weekends), walkable, neighbor friendly and had everything I needed in grocery shopping, coffee, bbq, Max line stop, performance venue, public park and of course a bar every 2 blocks it seemed. But I didn’t own it. How was the future going to look? Like the older neighbor tenants that had been living there for 20 years+? I couldn’t see myself like that. If you don’t own, you become subject to every twist of the owner of the property and if they sell, the new owner does what they want to do and you, the veteran tenant, have little say in it because ‘you don’t own it’. Plus the financial advantages, etc. The other pressing thing was I wanted a righteous woman who followed God and I wanted to increase my faith. I started to think back to a producer that brought in tapes to PCM of a preacher named Gino Jennings. Didn’t know his name at the time but I saw he had a lot of animated sermons, so I called PCM and got the name, looked him up on Youtube and was blown away at his style of preaching. Hardcore fire and brimstone bible teaching and aiming at all sinners with no hold back…especially against homosexual lifestyle. Now you know ain’t no preacher ANYWHERE in PDX going to speak against homosexuality because they scared of being ‘canceled’. But homosexuality is blasphemous against God…it just is. As a leader, you shouldn’t be afraid to speak against the LIFESTYLE. And that’s the key that most liberals twist up to their own narrative… making it look like it’s against the people in that lifestyle. So I found that his name is pastor Gino Jennings and his church, First Church Of Our Lord Jesus Christ, is based in Philly. It has chapters across the US and in the Caribbean. I found that he had a minuscule chapter on MLK and NE Wygant. The first Sunday I attended, the man who I had known all these years, turning in the FCOOLJC tapes to PCM and hanging with him outside of PCM, Vicente, was right there at the door. That was awesome to see him. I became a regular attendee, got to know everybody there, became an official member in their docket and enjoyed the Word. I decided I wanted to submit even further to God by getting baptized. When it was being done, I noticed that Vicente baptized me in Jesus name only. Now I hadn’t been a regular church going member since I was in my teens, but I remember the Trinity and I remember people got baptized with the Trinity being recited. I didn’t pay it much mind. My life leading up to finally returning to serve God, was groomed by my uncle Vince. He strategically planted small seeds in my mind over the decades and it worked. I give a lot of credence to him and still consult him on many things theological. He is an avid bible reader and leads a truly blessed life with his family down in Sacramento area of Cali. I updated him about how far I’ve changed and who I’m following, what church I belong to now and he was curious about Gino. He had heard his name before but never listened to him. He checked him out and a week later he told me that Gino’s doctrine is a ‘oneness’ type, which is a incomplete way of teaching the Word. It’s false doctrine and warned me to have discernment and ask questions. I prayed about it, because I liked my church. The senior pastor, Bo Stevens, gave me the answer by saying “there is no Jesus and God together” in a matter of words. That hit me like a brick and I knew it was time to move on. But at that time, I was preparing to make the big move to Alabama by Spring of 2021 and so I had been going back and forth, looking for work and a home to rent. While I was down there, I took my mom one Sunday and we visited their Atlanta chapter. When we walked up the stairs to the door, there was a gentleman with a wand waver checking everybody who went in. That was a red flag. What was the purpose of this? I know there are forces that want to get at Gino in a bad way, but he doesn’t even preach here. Rogers English was the pastor, but I guess since he represents Gino….Rogers just so happened to be the former Portland pastor. When we came in, women were sitting on one side of the aisle and men on the other. Something that wasn’t a thing at the Portland chapter. It wasn’t feeling right. I abandoned my search for a Alabama chapter and when I found a home in Birmingham, I just started a new search.
My quest for a home and part time job in Birmingham was God revealing Himself to me even further. I basically bet on myself (knowing that He has my back no matter what). I initially was looking at medium size cities that were within 2-3 hours of Jonesboro, Georgia (where my family is) but not in the Atlanta metro because it’s just a way too busy and large, expensive place to live. My older brother invested in property in the outskirts back in ’99 when a middle class worker could still afford a decent home on their wages. He would sometimes tell me I should start looking into the ATL to live, back when I was still in Oakland. I had visited enough times to know I’m not necessarily a big city guy. I don’t like heavy traffic almost during the whole time the sun is up! I don’t like looking forever for parking, waiting in big lines for every kind of event. Unh unnh. I looked to Columbia, SC, Chattanooga, TN, Nashville and Birmingham. I looked closely at crime levels, cost of living, walkability, concert venues, tornado capabilities and other factors. They all kind of evened out, so the tie breaker was the fact that my father was born and raised 45 minutes north of Birmingham. I figured there might be some relatives we never knew existed. I made my first journey to “Bham” from Jonesboro by car around March of ’21. I had a list of homes scheduled to visit. The first one I saw looked NOTHING like the good looking Zillow photos. It looked all dusty and abandoned. I found out later that a lot of houses all over the city looked abandoned but weren’t. The acclimation to Southern city environment took time. Coming from Portland, I didn’t expect to see so many empty lots in different neighborhoods. So many homes with holes in the roof with tarp covering. I realized quickly that this city doesn’t have even an inkling of the amount of money trading through it daily as Portland has. I found out it was a bustling iron manufacturing and steelfab town during the post-slavery era up to the late 70’s. In fact, it was at one time, nicknamed “Pittsburgh south”. Once that industry shrank to almost nothing, you had a generation that didn’t know how to do much else. Three quarters of the homes that they eventually passed down to their children, weren’t able to be cared for properly because the children were working jobs that paid nothing. Most could keep the bills paid for a while and that’s it. When tragedy struck the house, like a fallen tree (which happens a LOT here), they didn’t have home insurance. When property tax and income tax time came, they were struggling. Most just abandoned their homes and moved out of the county or into an apartment. So, those sights were shocking to me. Another sign of low income citywide was the amount of public housing complexes spread throughout…more than I would like. You couldn’t live in a central Bham hood without being near one. Even the desirable areas (Southside Downtown, Crestview, Avondale and Woodlawn) have projects very close by. The other shock that left my eyes wide open was the amount of discarded trash along most roads I drove. Even the poorest hoods of Portland (the Numbers) had fairly clean streets, if there wasn’t any homeless encampments. I went through about 11 houses on 2 visits to Bham. I almost didn’t find one. Actually I had one in my eyesights big time, that was located in a lil enclave called Tarrant, north of Bham. It was a very well kept 3 bedroom 2 bathroom, 2 floor brick home with an indoor garage and a pretty spacy backyard. They only wanted $1K a month for it(!) and the neighborhood didn’t have any apartment complexes in it. It was on a very quiet street traffic-wise. The only thing I didn’t like was that it wasn’t walkable. All the daily needs businesses were a car drive away. In Portland, I was a avid bike rider (at one point in time I didn’t own a vehicle for 5 years) and I was looking for bicycle infrastructure here. Nothing. Not even on the flatland main roadway (Pinson Valley Pkwy). But, I was okay with it for now. It looked better than any place I’d ever seen so far. I put in my bid but it was already taken the day of my visit. Dang.
During this second visit, I was already moved out of my place in Portland. I had a job locked in. Had my stuff packed tightly into a PODS and it would take upwards of a week to get to Alabama. I rented a room at an extended stay hotel over by Lowes Lakeshore for a week. Mannn, I picked the wroooong place to stay. The place was crawling with roaches. I had to keep my luggage in the bathtub and hang whatever outside food I brought, on a wire from the ceiling light. Lol. But I was determined and knew Heavenly Father had me. My mother came out to help me with the search. I warned her about the lil citizens living with me and it didn’t phase her. She knew the mission and she knows God. She wanted me to have success in moving closer to her. Once again though I was swinging and striking out. I had my desirable areas locked down and kept looking. Not as many were popping up like before and those that looked decent always had one thing that was off about it when I went to visit. One I found in this great neighborhood called Eastwood, was a 2 bdrm, 1 bath house for $1K monthly. Went to check it out and the first thing I didn’t like was that the street (Elder) was a no parking road and this place only had a single wide driveway that could fit 3 small cars. The deal breaker though was when I went in. The place smelled like human poop all over. The carpets were dirty and I don’t think a industrial cleaning could help it. That carpet needed changing. So it came down to the last day and I kept on alert. Inside my head I was letting doubt creep in a little. But I just talked to Father and kept looking. Literally in the 11th hour, a 3 bdrm, 1 bath home popped up on Zillow that wasn’t there the day before. It was in the perfect area, straddling Red Mountain, the mountain that separates the middle-low working class from the middle upper working class incomes. I called the guy up and he wanted $1K for it and I was excited. The pics of it looked real good. It was a rehabbed home and he was the builder. I noticed he had a African accent and for some reason that surprised me. I didn’t think there were any Africans living down South outside of ATL. I don’t know why I thought that. He had me call his paperwork guy and he had a accent too and I started to recognize it as East African, based on my years spent in Kenya and speaking Swahili fluently back then, you just recognize it. Me and moms headed over there and when we walked up on the guys, their looks told me East African for sure. In the midst of talking I asked if they were Kenyan and they confirmed! Surprised again. When I told them my story, they treated me like a long lost brother. We got the paperwork together and signed off a MTM lease. What blew me away and I knew had to be God moving, was when the owner/builder Anthony, told me he wasn’t even planning on renting the place, It was like a crash pad for him and his workers for when he’s managing his other properties nearby or getting contractor work in Birmingham. He lived in Alabaster at the time and hated driving back and forth. He said he felt compelled to put in on the market. I didn’t tell him until years later that God was moving through him. That man didn’t know he started a new and greatest chapter of my life. For real for real.
continued….
Six10 Visuals 