About the book: EveryDay Struggle EveryDay Survival EveryDay Hostility EveryDay Friendship EveryDay Violence EveryDay Empowerment In this rhythm and blues world, L is a young African-American man living in a one bedroom apartment in one of the many long-forgotten ghettos of America. He struggles with drug use, gang violence, and the usual bitchassness of his friends. During EveryDay Life's nostalgic verbal romp through the 90s, no subject from spankings to war is off limits to L and his three friends. In between sessions of smoking for perspective, these friends delve into a convoluted, yet endearing, never-before-seen game of The Dozens. L was once a promising athlete who is now relegated to the ghetto after being unjustly prosecuted. He is no longer satisfied with his lot in life and decides to make a life-altering change after much soul-searching, unwarranted police stops, and the assholism of his urban comrades. Follow L and his friends as they expound on their views of life, love, and society in a hip-hop nation. You know-the sort of things that happen in EveryDay Life. About the Author: With the odds stacked against him, MG Hardie maintained a 3.4 GPA and earned three degrees and a professional license in the span of six years. Living in Long Beach, he realized that even the so-called "lazy" or "shiftless" have feelings, thoughts, and ideas, which until now have had no real voice in society. He strives to bring the real urbanism with a positive twist to it. MG Hardie has accomplished just that with EveryDay Life.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
I only recently had the pleasure of reading EveryDay Life cover to cover. The characters are vivid, especially L. I get a clear sense of the fine line he walks: his cynicism about the powers that be delicately balanced with his desire for bigger and better things and his love for and commitment to his daughter. Hardie has a great ear for dialogue. The "talk" rings true and he manages to capture the energy, poetry, and wit of the urban subculture --Professor, African American Studies
This book is very very good. --2X NBA Champion, Craig Hodges
I am glad I read this book it is really eye opening. --3X NFL Champion, Willie McGinest
It takes a lot of courage to write a book like this. We need more books like this. --Sai Browne
I only recently had the pleasure of reading EveryDay Life cover to cover. The characters are vivid, especially L. I get a clear sense of the fine line he walks: his cynicism about the powers that be delicately balanced with his desire for bigger and better things and his love for and commitment to his daughter. Hardie has a great ear for dialogue. The "talk" rings true and he manages to capture the energy, poetry, and wit of the urban subculture. --Professor, African American Studies
"EveryDay Life" is Hip, although a dated word is the first one that came to my mind. We are a fly on the wall with four African-American men in the Long Beach inner city in the late 1990s. While the guys were hanging around smoking dope and talking, they taught me more than I could ever imagine. "Responsibility and guilt aren't the same thing, especially when you make the rules." They say of the white man. "Shut yo' sounds-of-blackness ass up. You black - black. Yo' forehead, yo' lips, yo' whole fact just black" They say of the black man. Struggling with drugs, sexual freedoms (lots of condom talk), gang violence, and sometimes poor choices in relationships we take this walk into what some would call "the wrong side." After reading "Every Day Life," you realize it is not "the wrong side" - maybe a more accurate description would be "the side for those yet undecided." In "Every Day Life," M.G. Hardie has provided this glimpse inside the walls of this tiny one-bedroom apartment that provides an education, resounding in nature. You see to the souls of these individuals; while making you laugh, they make you cry. --Reader Views
This book is very very good. --2X NBA Champion, Craig Hodges
I am glad I read this book it is really eye opening. --3X NFL Champion, Willie McGinest
It takes a lot of courage to write a book like this. We need more books like this. --Sai Browne
I only recently had the pleasure of reading EveryDay Life cover to cover. The characters are vivid, especially L. I get a clear sense of the fine line he walks: his cynicism about the powers that be delicately balanced with his desire for bigger and better things and his love for and commitment to his daughter. Hardie has a great ear for dialogue. The "talk" rings true and he manages to capture the energy, poetry, and wit of the urban subculture. --Professor, African American Studies
"EveryDay Life" is Hip, although a dated word is the first one that came to my mind. We are a fly on the wall with four African-American men in the Long Beach inner city in the late 1990s. While the guys were hanging around smoking dope and talking, they taught me more than I could ever imagine. "Responsibility and guilt aren't the same thing, especially when you make the rules." They say of the white man. "Shut yo' sounds-of-blackness ass up. You black - black. Yo' forehead, yo' lips, yo' whole fact just black" They say of the black man. Struggling with drugs, sexual freedoms (lots of condom talk), gang violence, and sometimes poor choices in relationships we take this walk into what some would call "the wrong side." After reading "Every Day Life," you realize it is not "the wrong side" - maybe a more accurate description would be "the side for those yet undecided." In "Every Day Life," M.G. Hardie has provided this glimpse inside the walls of this tiny one-bedroom apartment that provides an education, resounding in nature. You see to the souls of these individuals; while making you laugh, they make you cry. --Reader Views
Review
"It takes a lot of courage to write a book like this. We need more books like this."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
(RAW Rating 3.5) An Urban reality,
By The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Everyday Life (Paperback)
EVERY DAY LIFE is the true story of a young man's out-of-place experiences as he journeys toward reaching his pinnacle. The uniqueness of EVERY DAY LIFE is that it is a play. Hardie sets the scenes, exposes the plot and encourages readers to interact with the characters. The main character, 'L' is a young African-American man living in one of the forgotten ghettos of America. He was steps away from a lucrative career in sports, when an unjust prosecution landed him in prison and relegated him to harsh ghetto life. He now struggles with drugs, gangs, and dramatic friends.In the company of three male buddies and several female friends, 'L' spends his days smoking, for perspective, and delving into endearing games of the 'The Dozens'. But that wears thin and 'L' realizes there is something better for him; he makes a life-altering metamorphosis. EVERY DAY LIFE is contemplative as it shares the lives of these four men and how they relate to love, societal expectations, and self-worth. The influence of the hip-hop generation is very visible as their conversations visit occurences in every day life. This story gets its energy from the great strides Hardie made in his life, and his insatiable desire to depict urbanism with a positive twist. Reviewed by aNN of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It Is What It Is,
By OOSA Online Book Club "O.O.S.A. Gets It Read!" (World Wide Web, USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)
This review is from: Everyday Life (Paperback)
MG Hardie's "Everyday Life" is a short play about four friends, L, C, E, and B as they sit around in one their apartments and shoot the breeze. They discuss a little bit of everything - everyday life.It wasn't long before I found myself pulling up one of the non-matching chairs from the Rent-for-Less kitchen table and having a seat with them. I even threw in my two cents a few times and cracked some jokes! "Everyday Life" is an interesting, often comical exploration. I recommend "Everyday Life." Reviewed by: Marcella
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Book!,
By
This review is from: Everyday Life (Paperback)
In M. G. Hardie's debut release, EveryDay Life, he takes the reader on a daunting rollercoaster ride through the philosophic and moral ghost towns long since abandoned by the old-guard black intelligentsia (for the more profitable profession of public rabble-rousing and stylized television appearances, of course) in order to lay bare the drama of four invisible desperados.L, C, E, and B are the main players in this (awkwardly) dramatic play about life in urban America. Hardie's characters are confused, disenchanted, scared, and spiritually adrift in a dissonant sub-culture shot-through with soul death and perennial despair, all undermined by economic failure - which paradoxically paralyzes and informs much of any possibility of a brighter future. EveryDay Life raises critical questions, presents relevant commentary, and at least attempts to deliberate and wrestle with complex matters. But Hardie is too pessimistic and antagonistic with the current state of black America, and is therefore unable to move beyond the often limiting mentality of 'hood intellect in order to grapple in a sustained manner the possibility hope. He certainly is conscious of their social predicament, analyzing it from top to bottom, left to right, but seemingly gets lost and stranded in his own sardonic conclusions that the devil is stronger than a man. For him, the problems confronting America are full of scandalous conspiracies, deeply entrenched in systemic racism, black ignorance, and moral unaccountability. The following passage bears this out: "These mo-fo's can rescue you in a foreign country in the middle of a war but can't save people of color in their own city. I realized a long time ago that they just don't want us. I think I was about five. ... We're already in chains. People say start with the children, and that's because children can't vote. We should start with the parents. Teaching them and holding them accountable. Every time our people go out in pajamas, draw -in their eyebrows, or post ass shakin' videos, the people in power know we aren't paying attention to them." Hardie gets so caught up in observations of the psycho-drama that he never truly moves beyond the store-front preachment to realize the more desperately urgent call for swift action and immediate change. There is examination of the problems, but no solutions to the the problems. This is why we could never compare his play to the more balanced ones of Hannsberry, Miller, or even such contemporaries like the brilliant Tyler Perry because - unlike Hardie, these gifted story-tellers ultimately move beyond the pitiable reality to imagine the possibility of hope: Even in the face of shame, guilt, and humiliation (not to mention the pervasive matter of the overbearing matriarch), still, Walter Younger reclaimed his dignity and moved his family away from the slums of southside Chicago; Tyler Perry never loses sight of religious faith, spiritual healing, and the need for soul redemption; and, even though Willie Loman is suicidal and tragically obsessed with the question of greatness, Miller delivers a pragmatic lesson on social misconceptions and self-knowledge, and offers a profound critique on the fallacies of (unattainable and unrealistic) capitalistic pursuits. Hardie excites us with witty (and humorous) statements regarding the temporal shifts in black music, but refuses to linger on complex matters, ultimately leaving them untreated, unexplored, and unanswered: "I believe in the reason for rap. I believe it started before most of our ancestors were dragged to America and intensified by the slave's troubles. Original rappers like Wheatley, Dunbar, and Brooks allowed our concerns to be read and shared. Early on Cab Calloway did scat to music. In the 60s Cool G rap made it popular, youthful. In the 70s, we had money so we danced instead of rioting over our disappearing public spaces. Urban pioneer DJ Kool Herc turned everywhere we went into a party." Is this the best treatment of rap music chronology that Hardie could muster? And what has rap, slavery, Cab, Cool G, and the 60s and 70s to with anything? What has having money in the 70s to do with dancing? What about "our disappearing spaces"? Is this a critique of the emergence of the hip hop culture? I don't know. In a time of gang violence, high incarnation rates of black men, and inner-city murder rates, Hardie makes an interesting resolution to the problem at hand: "They have made the wrong things dependent on each other. Get rid of crime, and you won't need lawmakers or police. Think about your own answer as to why we have more senseless killing than those uncivilized parts of the world." It would be great if Hardie could be more specific on exactly how he defines "uncivilized parts of the world," especially as an American. But is this really a practical solution to the gun problem? Perhaps it is because they cannot afford guns. America is a capitalist system that exploits anything for profit. Perhaps those in Venezuelan ghettos (for instance) may not have easy access to the guns. So, Third World-like ghettos are certainly no more moral than Americans, but rather they perhaps can not afford to buy the weapons needed to be better criminals. By the way, Somalian guerillas are well armed, got pirates, and are a criminal force to be reckoned with. But I guess it's still a question of whether or not their killing sprees make sense. Hardie's book may go down in history as a bona fide hip hop play (as some have suggested). From corporal punishment to Eugenics, to black music and hip hop, Hardie puts forth an honest and deeply intellectual effort to raise critical issues, and make us think about the world we think we know. But the potential of the book only lies in its revelation of the issues affecting the under-represented - from the critical perspective of someone who has "been there, done that." But so what. Even the Chinese are aware of black ghetto life....and they love hip hop too. But where is the pot-o-gold at the end of the rainbow? (A tragic tale that doesn't have a happy ending with redemption, triumph, and perserverance will not make it to the Oprah Book Club.) With EveryDay Life, we get a birds-eye view into the complex lives or inner-city black men (Ellis Cose's "envy of the world"), and we get to see "what's goin' on" and how they cope. But that's all they are doing. Coping.
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