Raw Brotha Replay: Power

         I wrote this piece a year ago after watching the first episode for the cable show Power. I just watched the season 2 premier last night.   I get into this show for several reasons.   One reason is that it is the only show I've ever watched where I see myself reflected.  I could have written the main character, Ghost.   I am Ghost.   I relate best to men like him who move through the world with power.   Most men don't understand that.   They are followers.  Men like myself are leaders who always seek to impose their will even if it is in their own small corner of the world.  Indeed the true man seeks to impose his will on himself.  

        That's what it means to be a man.

        The following blog from last year sets the key note on what I'm about, what my books are about, what my inner circle is about.   

         Power.

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         This past weekend I watched the preview episode for a new series coming on the Starz channel this Saturday, June 7 at 9 pm, Power.   This show is executive produced by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.   Power stars Omari Hardwick as night club owner James “Ghost” St. Patrick.   St. Patrick is also the kingpin of a drug organization.   I usually don’t get into crime dramas but I will be watching this show every Saturday night.     The main character, James St. Patrick, represents the essence of what I write about in my books.   No I don’t encourage men to be drug dealers but St. Patrick has the traits that women find attractive in a man.

            St. Patrick showed himself to be a loving husband, father, and businessman.   He has a muscular build and I guarantee women will become fans of the show just to catch sex scenes.   He showed a depth of character as he questioned his decisions and direction of life.  Finally he was absolutely ruthless in dealing with a threat to his organization.   He is a very complex individual.   He is the Nice Guys and Players (NGAP) philosophy personified.

            My books, Nice Guys and Players, Sexual Chemistry, and Meeting Attractive Women are not the same as pick-up manuals or even more mainstream dating books.   In fact, the biggest criticism of my books was that they didn’t provide any techniques.   The critics missed the point.  Too many men want tricks and techniques for meeting and having sex with different women.   That is not the NGAP philosophy.  Instead of PRETENDING to be the man that women want BECOME the man women want.   Ultimately it is about becoming a MAN OF POWER.

            The basic premise of the NGAP philosophy is that women don’t quite want the nice guy.  He’s not sexually appealing, he’s like a brother, and he’s just a friend.    There are however occasions where the nice guy becomes desirable such as when women are older and wiser and can appreciate the nice guy’s traits.  Also quiet as it is kept there is a minority of young women who prefer nice guys.  The nice guy isn’t a total loser, as he brings needed traits to a relationship.

            Women don’t quite want the player either.  Yes indeed they will have sex with the players.  Some women will go from player to player.   Very few women, however, see the player as a long term relationship candidate.   In fact, many women will avoid being seen publically with a player.   Yes the player is good for sex but he brings little else to the table otherwise.  

            The ultimate man for a woman is a man who combines the best qualities of a nice guy and a player.  As one woman said to me, “a nice player.”   Now that may sound like a contradiction.   The general thought is that a man can be either nice guy or a player but not both.   There is a lot of talk on social media, websites, and blogs about the alpha male vs. the beta male.   One statement to this is “Alpha Fux, Beta Bux.”   It is felt by many that the alpha males get the women pregnant and then the women are provided for by the beta males.   Strong arguments for this.  I won’t attempt to refute the arguments.   My viewpoint is different.   Who says a man can’t be both?   Why not be the man who gets the sex, fathers the baby, and still be the daddy to the baby and husband to the mother?

            I don’t write about theories in my books.   I write what I know.   I KNOW it’s possible to be both the nice guy and the player cause that’s me.  That’s the men who mentored me growing up.   That’s the boys I grew up around.   I came of age in the seventies and eighties.   At least where I grew up in some of the worst and best parts of Washington, DC, if you were a male there were certain expectations that had to be met if you wanted to live a relatively peaceful existence.   One you had to be able to hold your own in a street fight.  Even if you got your ass kicked as long you fought back you were accepted.  You had to be at least decent at some sport.   You had to be able to talk to girls.  Overall my peers and I had to have some level of cool.   Now here’s a little tidbit about me.  In high school I was called a “Cool Bamma.”   One reason was that I would purposely wear high water pants to show off the expensive Polo socks I used to rock.   Hey I paid a lot of money for them.  People were going to see them.   Also I had nerdy interests.  I was considered cool though because I played sports, stared in some school plays, didn’t have a problem throwing hands, and I always knew where the happening parties were.   Plus I was very good at meeting women.   I went to an all-boys high school.  If I met a girl on the street or at a party I HAD to get her phone number on the spot.   I was an expert at day and night game as a 16-year old in 1981 decades before the term PUA was ever uttered.

            My point in sharing that tidbit about myself was that I couldn’t be just one way.   It wasn’t something I consciously thought about.  It was just life and how things were.   Nowadays people try to separate the two.  Always an either/or.  That’s not realistic.  All people have two sides.  We all have a duality.   What has happened in Western culture is that people try to be either one or the other.   Using the example of what I talked about in past blogs about social faces and sexual faces, people try to be one and suppress the other.   Most people only show their social face and try to bury their sexual face.  As a result they become sexually repressed which leads to a whole slew of problems.  The biggest problem is that they have trouble sexually arousing a member of the opposite sex.   Some people show their sexual face freely but in many cases have trouble in social situations where more reserved behavior is necessary such as on jobs or other public venues.   To succeed in life a person needs to be balanced between their social face and sexual face.

            If one were to be close to the men who get both the most sex and the best women one will see that these men are close to being balanced between their two faces.    They will see that these men may be thuggish or at least have that edge in their persona.   I’ve dealt with some dangerous individuals because of the lifestyle I used to live.   These men were definite players as they either had multiple women or one extremely beautiful and sexy woman.   They were also very gentle around women and children.   I knew one particularly dangerous man whose baby girl had him wrapped around her chubby little fingers.  They were also good people who knew something about loyalty and honor.   Their personality traits seemed like contradictions but were really complimentary and made them who they were.  

            With regard to women they were men who could satisfy women not only sexually but could take care of the social aspects of the relationship as well.  

            So what does all this have to do with power?   To meet the challenges in life a man has to be many things.   Too many men get stuck in a box.   Now as long as life fits into that box everything is gravy.   Life by its very nature does not accommodate us in this manner.   Life challenges a man to grow and develop new skills in order to meet challenges.   Every time a man can meet a challenge he develop a power.   For example, say a man is unemployed and undereducated.  He is a low level street hustler.  He could get a regular job if he takes classes at a training institute.   He did poorly in school though and ended up dropping out.   In order to succeed at this training institute he has to develop the discipline to study, to concentrate and to walk away from negative elements in his life.   If he develops these skills he gets the reward of a career and a chance at a better life.  At the same time he still has the skills he developed while “being bout that life.”   Those street skills can help him in his career because he learned how to read people real well and thus no one can take advantage of him. That’s power.

            The NGAP philosophy is about developing the power to move through life with authority.  I have an inner circle of followers from when I published my first book back in 2000.   The things they are doing is phenomenal.   They not only have women trying to get at them but these men are building businesses and living their purpose in life.   They are able to be the nice guy when the occasion calls for it.  They are able to be the player when they need to tap that ass.   They can handle themselves with CEO’s of major companies.  They can get gully in a back alley.  

            In the end it’s not about how many women one can get or even how much money someone can make.   It’s about having the power to stand up as a man and move through life.