Big-Ass wisdom...

This is why I love this big m-f's candor, analysis, straight-up balls. In an age where blacks dominate many sports, we still have few black coaches, managers, trainers, owners. But the real travesty? You can count the number of trained professional black sports journalists out there on your fingers and toes. Worse, we are not cultivating huge crops of keen young black minds in English and Journalism departments of colleges and universities. That fact makes dudes like Michael Wilbon and Steven Smith deans of American sportswriting; I actually look forward to Bryant Gumbel's closing op-eds and interviews on HBO's Real Sports, and I used to hate Bryant Gumbel! Y'all can take these comments as hateration on the three guys I've named if you wish. hahahaha. But notice I didn't say these men aren't trained, experienced pros or bad writers. In a perfect parallel anti-matter universe, however, they'd just be garden-variety average sports reporters at the Daily Bumfuck. Indeed, when you look at the extant universe of white sportswriters/reporters, once you cancel-out the hacks, sychophants & fools, you might have a galaxy almost as small as what the bruthuhs have now! Well, in any parallel universe or dimension, Jason Whitlock is our HL Mencken, and God bless him...

Regard, the wages of thugdom, hoedom, greed and hypocrisy in his article "Mayhem Main Event and NBA All-Star Weekend"

What they're really thinking

Forget bald-headed freaks like Brittany (you know the sick redneck chick hsaved her head as a pub stunt, no doubt fueled by Anna Nicole getting all the ink lately). You want to know what teenage white chicks really think about the rest of us? Check it out:

"I have respect for all races, but I'm very glad that I was born white. As a woman, it's the best race to be. Especially if you want to become an actress, like I do. If I wasn't white, then the next thing I would wanna be is Asian because a lot of men like Asian girls because they think they're docile and subservient and sweet which I don't really think is true because I once met this Asian girl at summer camp one time and she was a real bitch. If I couldn't be white and I also couldn't be Asian, then my third choice would be African-American because I've always wanted to be a gospel singer and also, black men are more forgiving if your ass gets big. Except I'd definitely want light skin and Caucasian features like Vanessa Williams or Halle Berry. And finally, you know, no offense or anything but my very last choice would be Arab. There's a lot of resentment in this country toward the Middle East and there's a lot of stereotypes floating around which I don't think are true because in the short amount of time I've known this Arab girl, she hasn't tried to bomb anybody and she currently smells okay to me."

Even Thugs Need Love!!!

Can anyone tell me who are the guys in the left photo?

Yep, the "Scottsboro" Boys. Who were they? Shame on you if you don't know. What is the photo on the right? Thug Matrimony, of course, coming in April. And "in time for Black History Month" as the press materials sqawk, TM II has already gotten the author a 6-figure deal. I'm jealous!!! I better just retire my damn pen...

But to paraphrase Morgan Freeman in the movie Seven (when he's in the library doing research and the brothers are playing Bid Whist): "A whole world of books all around you and you n&*gahs are reading this garbage?" If you didn't demand this, they wouldn't print it. Demand better.

Thoughts, anyone? Feel free to spit on me and call me an elitist, or a hater. I mean, why else would I point these out these little ditties?

Post-Valentine Pre-Mardi Gras Blues

Lawd, with snow school closings (bogus!), Tim Hardaway, bammas in SC being typical and endorsing Hillary over Obama, ice under my car that I need a chisel to remove (thanks to the Salvadoran dudes who shoveled it around me when I braved the snow the previous night and shovelled a path for our handicapped neighbor!), Black History Month's sort of petered out, too. It's sad that the only thing to see is a Brit flick, Amazing Grace, about William Wilberforce and the fight to abolish the slave trade...inspired the hymn as well...and what do we have? Friggin' Norbit!!!. And yeah my muse is on Paxil, I owe an essay to Callaloo and can't get motivated...I need Mardi Gras bad!!! Ahh, shit. I think the right wingers are feeling my malaise, too. I mean, with NASCAR starting to look like the NBA and NFL (especially Tank Johnson and the whole Cincinnati Bengals team...whacha gonna say about that, Rush and Bill O.?), Pat Buchanan-Joe Scarborough and a bunch of GOP types telling the Retard-in-Chief that not only is he wrong now in Iraq, the Taliban is coming back in Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan, where there really was a tie to 9-11...and what about our "allies" the Pakistanis?). Oh and there's much love in North Korea thanks to our other "friends," the Red Chinese. The Man really can't do without the Chinese. Hey, otherwise where would who we outsource all of our semi-skilled labor go? (okay, Mexico) Or what's life without a trade deficit, more pollution, oil consumption! I bet we helped them lobby for the Olympics. And now you got another dude spilling the beans...not "Scooter" but "Dusty," former CIA clown and favor-seller for the Administration...oops and another soon to be felon in my old division of the Justice Department, ENRD, an associate attorney general who had to clean out her desk for cozying to other unsavory types (why does it not surprise me that it's somebody she was supposed to regulate?). Jeeeeeeezzzz

Well, there is a light. First, Simon & Schuster has announced that my boy Jonathan Luckett's new novel The Forever Game will be published this August. Second, I just read probably the first prose anthology of short stories by "mixed race" or "multiracial" authors, appropriately titled Mixed, and edited by Chandra Prasad. Not limited to black-white biracial folks; it establishes a new Diaspora of many, many faces and mixtures! The Introduction by Alice Walker's daughter, Rebecca Walker, herself an author and journalist in her own right, is instuctive though oddly inapt. She says the "trope of the tragic mulatto" is dead, true. She says it's bizarre and even counter-productive that now it's "hip to be mixed." Just check out Hollywood, and folks like Vin Diesel or Devon Aoki who get roles because they are "exotic" looking, but also because they often downplay their "colored" half when it's clear Vin's a brotha and Devon is Asian. But then Ms. Walker goes on to survey the pathos in many of the stories in the collection. I saw people expressing a new ethos, a new side of folk we see everyday. I didn't see that much pathos, so I guess she subconsciously still thinks the tragic mulatto is alive and well?

Check out Mixed, works by Jon Luckett, and "Amazing Grace" (with Youssa D'Noir as 18th Century black author Olaudah Equiano. It will get you through to March...

Happy Valentine's Day

"If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with."
--Richie Havens

BTW, I stand corrected--you can indeed pre-order Ghettonation by Cora Daniels (see 2/9/07 Post).

Bullitt vs. Shaft

If you don't know who either are, then you don't belong in this debate. So, who wins? Fist fight, gun-fight, detective/deductive/critical thinking skills, lovemaking skills (I know Shaft's got an edge here, but hey, Bullitt boned Jackie Bisset back when Jackie Bisset was finer than any of these skinny vacuous white actresses we got today, including Angelina). Driving? it's Steve (Frank Bullitt). Come on...no contest there! Leather-wearing, it's Richard Roundtree. Other than that, tell me thoughts, you tough hombres and bad m-fs out there!!! It's likely raining/snowing/sleeting/windy (or bloody, if you're in Utah or Philly) wherever you are and you're bored, so leave a comment!!!

Disclosure: Shaft is one of my favorite films, but Steve McQueen is my favorite actor as you know. Bullitt is among his best, though I prefer the nuanced stuff in The Sand Pebbles and Papillon.

Whistling Dixie...and other things

Amazing how things do turn around. A Bush die-hard, anti-gay marriage evangelical pastor bones a dude in sauna, and then gets "cured" of his "ailment"and is hetero again! Now this! Remember all of the redneck DJs on the these "America First" country stations who attacked the Dixie Chicks? Recall the rancor on the Country Music Awards from blond gorillas like Toby Keith or cracker-hoes like Reba McIntire (and let's not forget the ire Tim McGraw drew when he declared that he and lovely Faith were in fact Democrats and supported the Chicks' right to free expression) and the lovely exposition of all things ugly that bubbles beneath the SUV and American idol veneer of our republic? Chick CDs were burned. It matched the stupidity of renaming French Fries "freedown fries." Hey last time I checked, there'd be no USA with the effete frogs, but that's for anoher post...

Well, last night the Chicks shined. You gotta love Natalie Manes channeling Bart Simpson..."Heh-Heh." You know, I'm not a fan (other than that song "Goodbye Earl"),but these chicks showed some balls, and I love it when folks show some balls to The Man. Especially when aimed at The Man's foolish proxies: rednecks.

Enough about music. Here's more of my Monday bitching and moaning: 1. Gates. This guy was supposed to be a fresh breath in the Pentagon and Cabinet. The dude's a cypher. Iran helping Iraqi insurgents? That would be tantamount to Catholics in the Republic of Ireland shipping arms to Orangemen in Northern Ireland 30 years ago. Get out of the the country. Invade pakistan instead. 2. Snow and ice. In DC, we have many immigrants from sunny climes. They cannot drive in winter weather. Period. Call me Archie Bunker but it is true. Couple that with suburban housewives who drive their mega SUVs and vans as if they really are busting though a snowdrift in Wyoming as they pull a load of longhorn steers--yet they are merely on their way to the mall. Gee whiz, it's amazing how the SUV in commercials never seems to reflect what it's actually being used for. And Lord, no one ever tells Mrs. Gated Community that these things brake just like cars in snow and ice. Now you know why I dread winter in Washington. 3. Ignorant white people. I know, that's one's a throwaway, and see my post of 2/9/07 below on the elevation of all things GHETTO as a counterpoint, and possibly, if I may play Devil's Advocate, a cause. But hey, let's start with Aussie PM John Howard attacking Barak Obama. What a douchebag--he looks like the dickheaded dad in "Muriel's Wedding." Or Dick Cheney's younger brother? Yeah, Australia has a whole 1,400 troops (no combat) in Iraq. As the for some other douchebags, moist and dripping, check this out:

In Savannah this past weekend, artist/photographer Cedric Smith, who's work was introduced by Valerie Dillon at the Dillon Gallery in Cheslea, W. 25th Street and will have a massive show in April, was taking a break from another exhibition. Wearing horn rimmed glasses and an argyle sweater, he entered a toney stationery store,browsed, then entered a typical, posh "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" Savannah antique shop. The antique shop owner seemed very nervous;the woman took a call, made a call, then excused herself, leaving Cedric alone and perplexed. As he was about to leave, ten SWAT officers rushed him, assault sub-machine guns ready to riddle himwith 10mm rounds if he didn't hit the floor. Cedric hit the floor.

You know the rest of the story. A black man who bore no physical resemblance to Cedric at all (and who was wearing a long ragged coat, rather than an argyle sweater) had been robbing some establishments nearby. The man suposedly hid a sawed-off shot gun under that coat. Well, through his agent and the local gallery owner, Cedric is seeking apologies from Savannah PD's jarheads. But mostly, he wants an explanation from the stationery store owner and the antique proprietor. Apparently they were the ones who called the cops. Now, Savannah prides itself on the same urbane, artsy, southern-patrician "we're above that sort of thing" that its sister city Charleston, or places like bucolic Charlottesville or Asheville, also claim. Okey-dokey. The owners refuse to talk to him. He doesn't want to kick their asses. He just wants an explanation. He should talk to Natalie Manes. Success is the best revenge...then go back and slap the shit out of those crackers.

Ghettofab revealed and reviled?

Some food for thought, as we battle the forces of Mordor (the GOP, Fox News, Anne Coulter). Hard to fight a war with an ablatross around your neck, and that albatross is this worship of all things ghetto.

Regard Ghettonation by Cora Daniels, author of Black Power, Inc.:

"We live in a society where shows like Pimp My Ride top cable ratings, babymama has become a family term, pimp and ho Halloween costumes are sold in toddler sizes on the internet, and even Martha Stewart proudly boasts to television viewers that she 'can get ghetto when she needs to.'"

So what is your opinion? Leave a comment. You know where I stand on this. The punishment of Mrs. Stalker Astronaut should be to pilot a shuttle into space, with a cargo of Curtis "Fiddy Cent" Jackson, Prof. Dyson (unless he stops this love of all things thug), half of College Park, GA and everyone in Diddy's family (I'll raise the twins). Not enough fuel for re-entry, of course. Just kidding...

More descriptions of the book:

With Ghettonation, acclaimed journalist and author, Cora Daniels, takes on
one of the most explosive issues in our country today in this thoughtful
critique of America's embrace of a ghetto persona that is demeaning to women,
devalues education, celebrates the worst African American stereotypes, and
contributes to the destruction of civil peace. Her investigation exposes the
central role of corporate America in exploiting the idea of ghettoness as a hip
cultural idiom, despite its disturbing ramifications, as a means of making
money. She showcases Black rappers raised in privileged families who have taken
on the ghetto persona and sold millions of albums, and not so Black celebrities
such as Paris Hilton, who have adopted ghetto attitudes and styles in pursuit of
attention and notoriety. She also gets personal, exploring her own relationship
to ghetto and the ways in which she is both part and outside the Ghettonation.

Wagging the Dog/Slappin' the Hog

Story #1 Wagging the Dog. Sabre-rattling by the Retard-in-Chief. Hold up...I thought the Iranians were Shiites, right? So aren't they helping the same folks our dumb asses put in charge? It's the Sunnis who are the enemy, correct? Oh damn, I'm so confused. But hey...details, details. Saddam didn't have WMDs nor did he have shit to do with 9-11, but who cares?! We need to just shut up, turn off our brains and support our President:

WASHINGTON - Deeply distrustful of Iran, President Bush said Monday "we will respond firmly" if Tehran escalates its military actions in Iraq and threatens American forces or Iraqi citizens.
Bush's warning was the latest move in a bitter and more public standoff between the United States and Iran. The White House expressed skepticism about Iran's plans to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq. The United States has accused Iran of supporting terrorism in Iraq and supplying weapons to kill American forces.
"If Iran escalates its military actions in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and - or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly," Bush said in an interview with National Public Radio.
The president's comments reinforced earlier statements from the White House.
"If Iran wants to quit playing a destructive role in the affairs of Iraq and wants to play a constructive role, we would certainly welcome that," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. But, he said, "We've seen little evidence to date (of constructive activities) and frankly all we have seen is evidence to the contrary."
Sharply at odds over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, Washington and Tehran are arguing increasingly about Iraq. American troops in Iraq have been authorized to kill or capture Iranian agents deemed to be a threat. "If you're in Iraq and trying to kill our troops, then you should consider yourself a target," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week.
Iran's plans in Iraq were outlined by Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qumi in an interview with The New York Times. He said Iran was prepared to offer Iraqi government forces training, equipment and advisers for what he called "the security fight," the newspaper reported. He said that in the economic area, Iran was ready to assume major responsibility for the reconstruction of Iraq.
"We have experience of reconstruction after war," the ambassador said, referring to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. "We are ready to transfer this experience in terms of reconstruction to the Iraqis."
Johndroe said the Bush administration was looking at what the ambassador had to say.
The White House says there has been growing evidence over the last several months that Iran is supporting terrorists inside Iraq and is a major supplier of bombs and other weapons used to target U.S. forces. In recent weeks, U.S. forces have detained a number of Iranian agents in Iraq.
"It makes sense that if somebody is trying to harm our troops or stop us from achieving our goal, or killing innocent citizens in Iraq, that we will stop them," Bush said on Friday.

Story #2. The right wing bloggers and the douchebags of Fox News are at it again. Hopefully they'll keep screwing the pooch, and drive regular folks even farther away. Like Satchel Paige once said, "The more you keep slappin' the same old hog, the more folk with common sense are going to saw that you ain't got the bacon." (I'm sure it made sense to Satchel). Matt Drudge, Booker Rising and the usual army of scumbags should be retooling from the miscue below, if they're smart. Oh well, it's about time they took a break from Hillary:

NEW YORK - U.S. Sen. Barack Obama hardly could have anticipated that the first minor media crisis of his presidential bid would involve where he went to school at age 7.
The Illinois Democrat's welcome into the world of modern campaign coverage last week offers lessons for both candidates and reporters on the marathon run until November 2008. And it's undoubtedly a sign of things to come.
Chances are "about 100 percent" that a candidate will be ruined by a story that he or she hasn't anticipated, said ABC News political reporter Jake Tapper.
Stories seemingly trivial or even untrue will appear instantly and reverberate madly through the media. Candidates most skillful in anticipating them and reacting swiftly will have a big advantage.
A magazine article's charge that Obama had attended a radical Islamic school while living in Indonesia as a boy was spread on blogs and, most prominently, on Fox News Channel.
Other news organizations sent reporters who learned the school in Jakarta was public and secular and has long accepted students of all faiths. CNN's Anderson Cooper seemed to relish sticking the knife in a rival. "That's the difference between talking about news and reporting it," he said. "You send a reporter, check the facts and you decide at home."
CNN had time to do that because it wasn't a hard news story, said Sam Feist, the network's political director.
"One of the things that's dangerous about a presidential campaign when it comes to the facts is the echo chamber, where one news organization reports a story and it's not true, and one outlet picks it up, another picks it up and another," Feist said. "Before long the public assumes that it's true even when it's not."
Tapper wrote about the story, with the Obama campaign's denials, on his blog when it first surfaced. But like CNN, it didn't appear on the air at ABC until after a reporter had gone to Jakarta.
Whether the same caution would have held a year later, if the charges had surfaced in the few days between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, is an open question.
"A long and protracted campaign like we're going to see means you're going to have long periods with not much news and news outlets are going to want to fill the void," said Tom Rosenstiel, a former political reporter for the Los Angeles Times and now director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "In some ways, there are more openings for opposition research, dirty tricks, to get into play."
Back in 1992, when the story first surfaced about Bill Clinton and his alleged affair with Gennifer Flowers, a reporter asked him about it one day and received a response. Yet the story was left off all three network newscasts that evening.
That notion of restraint, of major news organizations taking time to weigh the newsworthiness of these kinds of stories, seems almost impossible to imagine today.
Before the Internet's spread, a newsroom used to have only a handful of news sources coming into their computers, said Marty Ryan, political director at Fox News Channel.
"Now there are hundreds, thousands," he said. "Many of them have a political agenda and many of them have different standards for what they put on their blogs and their Internet sites. We just have to be real careful about what happens in the future."
Being careful about the facts is a lesson drummed into every journalist. But opinion-based talk shows aren't run by journalists. They're a staple of Fox's lineup and spreading around other cable news outlets.
"You can't say it's right or wrong, it's just different," Ryan said. "We acknowledge that. We acknowledged the error with the Obama thing and let's just move on."
Television quickly magnifies stories that might have been forgotten or not even noticed otherwise, with Howard Dean's scream an infamous example. Remember: Most Americans did not have three cable news networks in their homes until the 2000 campaign.
Similarly, it wasn't too long ago that the only Web site political professionals watched carefully was the Drudge Report. Now, there are dozens of political blogs that must be monitored.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, an expected GOP presidential candidate, has gone out of his way to cultivate relationships with prominent bloggers. He learned their bite earlier this month when a Massachusetts gadfly, Brian Camenker, wrote a lengthy report questioning Romney's conservative qualifications that spread quickly on the Web.
Most campaigns have opposition research staff, whose job it is to search for damaging information about an opponent. The smart candidates do aggressive opposition research on themselves, so as not to be surprised by anything.
Campaigns are actually less likely now to feed damaging material to mainstream news organizations, Tapper said. The campaigns prefer the blogs.
"There are so many ways to get information out to people _ whether or not that information is true," said Elizabeth Wilner, chief of NBC News' political unit.
Many Democrats believe that John Kerry's inability to respond quickly to an unanticipated story _ charges by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that he didn't deserve his Vietnam War medals _ doomed his 2004 campaign. Swift response is now valued. So is aggressive response.
Still, the political whirlwind may not slow down because of the Obama example.
"I honestly think that no one is going to be chastened by anything this year," Rosenstiel said.

Two Coaches

This is a time tailor made for Prof. Todd Boyd and Bill Rhoden (Forty Million Dollar Slaves). Two black coaches facing each other in the Super Bowl. Two black coaches in a profession that snickers at such a convention. That chortles at the notion of a black quarterback, at that. No brains, all fast twitch muscle fiber, supposedly. Hell, look at that waste of potential named Michael Vick, right? And you have a governing body--The NFL owners--who are scarier and subject to less regulations than the old railroad barons of the 19th century; the NFL's attorneys and corporate image guardians would make Josef Goebbels or the old Pravda aparachniks shudder. But despite all that...two black coaches, squaring off. Two friggin' black coaches, I repeat. Who would have thunk it?

Of course, the hype's all going to surround Peyton Manning and Rex Grossman. Manning has sucked in the post season and let's face it--the Ravens and the Pats choked. They were and are better teams than the Colts. But that's what's fanatastic about post season sports--you only have to be good in one game, or zig instead of zag. Who cares how teams match on paper. As for the Bears, well, the NFC is pretty much high school compared to the AFC, and the Bears are the creme of that bad crop. Then there will be the who's-who in South Beach thing; Diddy's Super Bowl Party. Maybe Ray-Ray will roll down from Baltimore and shiv someone else. Paris Hilton will dress up like a cheerleader. Hey it all makes for better ink...

...all better ink than history being made. That's always boring, or drums up messy ideas. Let us revel anyway before the silly commercials and annoying pre-game shannigans. Lovie, Chuck--I can't stand your teams, but a whole lotta folk got your backs nonetheless.

Golden Globes

I know there will be cultural conspiracy theories about Forrest's win. Fits the usual mode: like Denzel in "Training Day," a black man has to play a sociopath to win an award.

I noted a different trend. Along with Forrest, you saw a whole bunch of ordinary, if not chunky or downright ugly or old folks winning. Think about it--these people are the antithesis of the artificial, eating-disordered, silicon, tabloid Hollywood. Jennifer Hudson, Hugh Laurie (who's one of the ugliest white men around), Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep (both old chicks), America Ferrera...even Sacha Baron Cohen (who's a bizarre looking dude; Borat single handedly affirmed that the mass of racist dumbfuck goobers or arrogant tools are indeed in the Red States or Bush enclaves up here among we normal people). Regarding our people, it was good to see even the usual annoying suspects like Prince, Jamie Foxx, Will Smith, Beyonce, et al. reasonably out of the limelight.

So, I'm celebrating for the triumph of regular folks. We'll be back to Brittany and Paris and Jessica and Donald Trump soon enough. Now I have to get the DVD of Last King of Scotland and see Forrest scare people far more than the back of Ving Rhames' head...

MLK

Happy Birthday. What would you say about the "war" in Iraq, I wonder? Or the minimum wage "battle?" Or these tools who have hijacked your name and message--folks like our President, many other white folks. Interesting how they dilute what you were about by making you an icon, a myth. When you were alive they hated you. But these days over hyping is better than denigrating you, or keeping you a shadowy out-figure like Malcolm. Malcolm in his early years, that is. And what would you say about your bizarre kids, and even Coretta in those last years. No one's perfect, and you loved them, but sometimes I wonder if you didn't think your loss was too much for Coretta's sanity to bear, eh?

Oh well, we can debate later. For now, we'll sing your praises and whisper a prayer.

I'm stoked for the Surge!!!

Hey, don't call it an escalation. Don't call it an army of occupation comprised of redneck high school C- students and brothas and sistas and Hispanics who nothing else better to do. Forgive them for their training camp mantra of hunting "Hadjis" and "ragheads" and trying to spread the New Testament to Muslims. I'm true believer now. I LOVE the Surge.

Why? Look at the fine print to be unveiled tomorrow night: urban revitalization. Grants and low interest micro loans to small businesses and "underprivileged" start-ups. Increased scholarships to students to attend colleges and technical schools. Industry incubators to create jobs and skill-building. Better yet--quotas...not affirmative action...real quotas in government hiring, government contracts, access to capital, reconstruction and revitalization...LORDY LORDY LORDY...do we MINORITY types need to quit Detroit and the A-T-L and move to Iraq? Hell no, even though some of the GOP clowns who lost this Fall did say Baghdad was safer than most American cities. But we should all be stoked for the surge, and encourage the President and the GOP toadies in Congress to merely give us the same treatment as they wish for Iraq. Maybe even make it "safe" for us here. Maybe that's what New Orleans needs--a redneck/Playstation 3-hungry Army of Occupation, and micro loans. I feel beter already...

Eisa Nefertari Ulen's "Crystelle Mourning"

My first recommendation for '07 is Eisa Nefertari Ulen's debut novel Crystelle Mourning (Simon & Schuster). Eisa is a journalist and an English professor at Hunter College in Manhattan. Let's try to avoid the "literary fiction" moniker because that seems to be a death sentence in this era of hyper marketed "urban/thug/hooker" novels. But Crystelle Mourning is indeed a story rooted in "urban" mould. Eisa recently explained her approach and the novel's general themes:

"It’s not a story about that particular girl, it’s a story about
all the nameless, countless, girls and women who watched, powerless, as the boys
and men they loved most “got shot up or locked up or somethin.” How were their
bodies responding to this destruction of Black male flesh? How were their souls?
I was teaching elementary school in Baltimore in the very earliest 1990s, and I
would often have to stop class because one of the kids born addicted to crack
had taken asthma medication that morning and was, literally, climbing the walls.
“Go get the nearest male!” I’d tell the nearest child as I futilely tried to
physically restrain the power of the nearest crack baby-- now age 9, with an
almost man-like power. One of my students went to five funerals – all her
cousins, all male, all teens – in one school year. She still managed to get low
Bs. How did she? How did her mother remain so resilient and strong? What of the
women who weren’t so strong? Were those many funerals connected to the long bout with pneumonia my student suffered that same year?"

--see ToyariJones.com and see also National Public Radio (interview by Ferai Chideya)

Yours Truly can attest, fanboys and girls. One day Eisa invited me to speak to her class in my former life as a lawyer in Bo'mo' City. That was around 1991 or thereabouts. Day-um...seems like a million years ago but I still recall the experience in vivid detail. So much promise and pain in the eyes of these little kids. Of course, I saw a different species of pain and of promise manifesting--depending on whether I looked into the eyes of a little black boy or a little black girl.

The main character in the novel, Crystelle, is haunted by this promise-pain duality; her life is steered by that other overarching duality many African Americans juggle. That is--what is it to be black, yet educated/upper middle class? Worse, what is it to have been poor, or grown up in "the hood" and then left all that behind for the middle class? Crystelle's haunted by a boy, Jimmie, she loved in a from where she physically separated/escaped/abandoned, e.g., the mean streets of West Philly. Now she's a NYC buppie. Now she's engaged to a bougie professional brotha. Now she's an ad agency wog. Now she's dealing with that level of duality as well:

"Timelessness shifted places with now as soon as Crystelle opened her eyes. So when her lids drifted down, all she could see was the office where she sat and tried to sell hot chemicals for Black women to pour over their hair. Relaxers. She needed to get ready to go to work. She pulled the covers over her head. She had to go to work. Now she could see the pile of old ad copy on her drafting table. That campaign was over, but a new one would be starting soon. She would have to meet with clients early next week. She would have to do some research, come up with new ideas. What should the model say while she rolls her neck to sell the stuff that straightened hair like hers?"

I will dispense with the usual cliches written in reviews of such novels, i.e. "lyrical and intelligent." Those are baselines when it comes to Eisa's work. Nuff said.

There's another reason you should buy and read this, and recommend it to your bookclub. I'm tired of listening to you women (yes I'm calling you out, Baisden style) whine and cackle about how much you want "better" fiction for your bookclubs, yet you consistently throw up your hands and pick the latest churchlady stuff or skank memoir. We want folk like Malaika Adero at S & S/Atria to publish more books like Crystelle, right?

Another Warm, Wet New Years

Pardon my biting on the title of my 12/23/06 Post ("Another Warm, Wet Christmas"). It seemed appropos--crazy weather in the Rockies, the Plains, all over the world, trees blooming in our own backyard. Again, tool-of-tools Al Gore is re-born. Lovely about that humongous ice sheet breaking off in the Artic, right? When the frozen methane trapped in the seabed starts bubbling up, then the ice caps will really start to liquefy. Looked kind of warm on New Years Eve in Times Square, didn't it? Remember when the folks were drunk/high AND frostbitten? Yeah, yeah, we're in an El Nino flow. Query whether El Nino and La Nina themselves are altogether "natural" occurences. Perhaps they're just magnified by what humans have been doing re: air/water pollution, greenhouse gases? Again, I'm no tree-hugger but day-um! As I stated in a comment to a commenter in my last post of 06--the Chinese, our great political and economic allies ;-) and ironically the last best hope of cut-throat robber baron capitalism--are bringing a new coal-fired plant online each month. India, another source for the semi-skilled jobs poorer Americans used to have as a means of social mobility and home ownership, is doing the same. Hey, you know the end of the world is coming when Ryan Seacrest and Carson Daley ring in the New Year, whilst Dick Clark adjusts his catheter...



Another indication of Armeggedon is this lovely photo. That's Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams, unwinding in Mexico after Brokeback Mountain. Don't celebrities look beautiful when they're on vacation? Check out her bathing suit, his gut, his beard, her scrawny legs. No wonder Heath boned Jake Guyenhall in the movie! This type of stuff is what the least common denominator of our society deem newsworthy. Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton spur our devotion, yet only about 10% of the US adult population can tell you where Darfur is, or what just happened in Somalia. Diddy and Jay-Z are proclaimed geniuses for copying old music and mashing it together with a beat and psycho flourish. (Hell, compared to the hip hop lyrics of today, Kool Moe Dee and LL Kool J were Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost!) When knowledge is razor thin and not terribly broad, when critical thinking skills are non existent, when communication and public speaking skills are reduced to obscenities, mumbling and text messaging, etc etc--is it any wonder that discussion of political, historical and social issues are reduced to pop culture myth exhanges, idiotic ramblings...or just plain bullshit? It would explain the rise of Dancing with The Stars, The Flavor of Love, American Idol, E! and Fox News. Or, for that matter, Essence magazine's transformation into pages of ads for white-owned womens products, and C-Murder's book deal. I'm sure he'll be the new F. Scott Fitzgerald. Thanks, Vibe Magazine, for that cultural heroin...

Speaking of cultural nonsense, do you think Brittany Spears and Beyonce know who Gerald Ford is? Why should they, would be the reply. Why should anyone? Nevertheless, his funeral procession is clogging the streets of my town and tourists here for holiday vacations got the added treat of lining up to see his coffin. "Bread and circus," the Romans called it. Keep the mob entertained and stupid. Sound familiar? See previous paragraph. I paid the man the reverence due him as our former Commander-in-Chief, and as a throwback to a more human and humane Republican Party. But I had to laugh my pecker off at the Gen X and redneck parents in these lines trying to explain who this m-f was to their mucous-stuffed crumbsnatchers when they plainly had not a clue!!!

Anyhow, here's Nat Turner's Ford Top Four: (1) falling down a lot and thus propelling Chevy Chase (and Saturday Night Live) into the limelight, (2) being shot at by former Manson hoes, (3) giving douchebags Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney their first big jobs, and keeping Douchebag #1 Henry Kissinger onboard, thus handing us more bullcrap with the Russians and in the Middle East, not to mention that ridiculous "Mayaguez" incident (check out my take on that in A Prayer for Deliverance), (4) being so lame that he actually looked bad in debates with Jimmy Carter. Yes, Jimmy Carter. Jimmy's no Barak Obama or Daniel Webster. As deep as he is, often he comes off closer to our current dangerous retard of a president. Thus you youngsters can now imagine how bad Ford actually was in comparsion. Then again, you youngsters have no imaginations outside of what the PS 3 tells you and no concept of what good oratory might be, so just take my word on it as if I'm folks y'all trust: Tom Bergeron, Simon Cowell or Tyra Banks! Gerry Ford was a "good guy," which was precisely why he was handpicked by Nixon and his handlers as VP. Articles of Impeachment were on their way to the Senate and Ford got the word that he had to defuse any civil and constitutional strife that would occur if Nixon were to be indicted and put on trial regardless of his offer to resign. Them be da facts, son. That be da shit, son. (I'm writing in Gen Z/myspace-speak so's you youngsters can understand).


OK, enough New Year curmudgeonliness for now. Next post will be more positive, I promise. I'll showcase Eisa Ulen, Jonathan Luckett and Martha Southgate as authors we NEED to see more. I'll give you an update on The Darker Mask, Yella Patsy, and maybe my thoughts on why white evangelical Christians (or pinheaded black churchfolk, for that matter) didn't clog the aisles for The Nativity Story as they did for Crazy Mel's Jesus flick.


Welcome to 2007 bee-ches!!! This is my year. Gird yourselves...