Sarah Palin's Jungle Fever

Maybe I'm writing about this because I feel bad that President Barack Obama is taking a beating in the polls lately...It is said that his approval rating is at it's lowest and that because of voter reaction to him , the Democrats lost two important races yesterday...One in New York...and another in Nevada...

I'm hearing that only 49 percent of Americans believe that his jobs bill will get passed by congress and even less believe that if it does get passed it will put significant numbers of people back to work!.. It's not easy being a Democrat or Barack Obama this week...

So when I heard about this news story involving Sarah Palin...I decided , it being near the end of the week and all....to write about this...Is it true?  The poster girl of the Tea Party and the queen of neo-conservatives everywhere had jungle fever once??

A new biography titled "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin" written by Joe McGinniss, (the crime writer who wrote ''Fatal Vision" back in the 70's about Army Doctor, Jeffrey McDonald, who slaughtered his family Charles Manson style.  The Book was a best seller and a movie.) claims that former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin not only had an affair with her husband's business partner, but , drum roll please...also snorted cocaine and  had a one-night stand with former NBA star Glen Rice in 1987, a year before marrying her husband.

Apparently Palin had a fling with former Heat/Hornet/Laker Glen Rice while he was in college and while she was a sports reporter in Alaska, all the way back in 1987. He was 20, She was 23.  A lot of this can be taken with a grain of salt...The excerpt did appear in the National Enquirer.....Also, a lot of this could also be filed under the "so what?" category too....It all alledgedly occurred years ago...but the Holier than thou crowd ,who just happen to vote Republican and feel that the Tea Party is the way to go had a field day with Former Represenative Anthony Weiner and with Former President Bill Clinton and their indescretions...I just kind of like to give it back to them when it's one of their own.

In the book, which will be published on September 20th,(Next Week)Joe  McGinnis claims Sarah had a steamy interracial hookup with basketball stud Glen Rice less than a year before she eloped with her husband Todd. Why are all inter-racial hookups steamy?

Sarah Palin supposedly hooked up with the NBA great, then a 6-foot-8 junior at the University of Michigan when he was playing in a college basketball tournament in Alaska in 1987, the book says. At the time, Sarah, just out of college, was working as a sports reporter for the Anchorage TV station KTUU.
A publishing source told The ENQUIRER that McGinnis claims Sarah had a "fetish" for black men at the time and he quotes a friend as saying Sarah had "hauled (Rice's) ass down."

This is all really funny, but again....You have to take it all with a grain of salt considering the sources...

Random Thoughts

1. I keep threatening to go on a blog break and just read... (other peoples' blogs and about four novels I purchased this summer).

2. I'm going to read, but I know I'll get an idea for one (or now all three) of my blogs and be at it again.

3. I picked up Zane's new novel "The Hot Box" and "Known to Evil " by Walter Mosley. I'm going to start reading one next week.

4. I don't believe in reposts. I like to keep my blogs fresh.

5. I'm curious about Twitter and starting to get bored with Facebook.

6. A lot of talented bloggers inspired and helped me out when I got in the blogging game. I just hope that I've lived up to their example of excellence.

7. Is it just me or was anybody else confused at the ending of the movie "Inception"?

8. Is the art of subtlety all but dead in music, art, writing, and media in general?

9. I've written a lot of long form fiction and short stories for my "Escapades" blog, but I really want to concentrate on and get back to my poetry!

10. I'm blessed that a lot of my favorite bloggers are also my friends on Facebook!

Better Living Through New Media

When I was a Communications/Journalism major, I could not foresee the future as it is now... if so, I would have been more excited about my craft.

My wife would tell you that she's about to kill me if I don't get rid of some of these magazines I have around this house. I'm still a big magazine reader. I subscribe to Vibe, GQ, Esquire, Jet, Essence, Details, Giant, Jazztimes, and Philly Sports. Every month, the mailman sends a flood of these magazines to my house and I read them and leave them laying around, much to my wife's dismay. Ever so often I have to bring a big green hefty trash bag up out of the basement and load all of my magazines into them to be dispersed and to make room for the next batch that are coming the next month. A lot of the magazines that I like (previously mentioned and others) have online sites. You have to pay to actually read the content so, I'll be reading my magazines a little while longer.

My books are the next matter. I have three bookshelves loaded with books and a number of older books I have purchased are in the basement. It has been "suggested" that I donate some of my older books to the Free Library or a book drive but, I can't part with my literary treasures. The last time I was at Borders book store, I was shown something called the "electronic book" by Sony. It is an electronic device that can "call up" the latest best seller from a website and enable you to read it while in transit, without actually having a paperback or hardback in your hands and you don't have to twirl pages. I don't know if that will actually catch on yet... I see it as unnecessary. Aren't we, as a society, leisurely (lazy) enough? Can't we just pick up a book and turn a page? But, maybe that's just me.

Did you notice, I didn't mention newspapers? If you haven't noticed, a lot of newspapers are going out of business around the country. This was happening before the present economic collapse. Much like magazines and books, I used to buy The Philadelphia Daily News religiously every morning. It was thirty-five cents... then, it went up to fifty cents... and a year later, it went up to seventy-five cents. I discovered that I could get my news for free on the internet from a number of sites... USA Today.com, CNN.com, Philly News.com (which is actually The Philadelphia Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer's online news service). So, why shell out seventy-five cents, right? Well, a lot of people are probably asking the same thing... which is why these papers have cut their staffs in half and have been concentrating more on their online services and the advertising that keeps them free. To make matters worse, all of the papers are taking a hit from "free" papers like Metro, which is at every transit station, and City Paper, an alternative and hip free newspaper that is on all of the college campuses in the city and also at every transit station.

I don't know what's happening right now but, there seems to be in a flux of new ideas and inventions just for the sake of invention flooding the market right now. Despite the availability of news on the internet, I still like the feel of actually thumbing through a newspaper every now and then and having the personal touch of news that was written by local reporters from my hometown about my hometown. I would hate to see all of these guys suddenly out of work. I will go on the line and say that by the end of this century, all news will be retrieved from the internet on computers and this will include magazines and books. You'll just put in your credit or debit card number, they'll take your cash, and you'll read whatever it is you want. It's practically that way already. We've already seen this with music. Can movies be that far behind?

So-called music stores are also becoming extinct. Will going to the movies join them? If so, will the newsstand and magazine rack also go the way of the dinosaur? I'm not trying to sound like an alarmist but, this future sounds and feels very empty to me. I'm not sure what to think about it but, I don't feel altogether good about it either.

Maverick Relaxation

I'm off from work today and I plan to do nothing... unless I want to, of course. I don't even have a major blog post to write today but, I told myself that I should discipline myself to write something, even when I don't feel like it. I often ask myself, "Should I really waste people's time like that? People take the time to come over to your blog and you've got a post like this?" Hey, it's different, isn't it?

I plan to finish reading "The Right Mistake" by Walter Mosley, a novel I purchased about a month ago...


I think I'll finally listen to the new CDs by Musiq Soulchild, Keyshia Cole, and Anthony Hamilton that I got for Christmas...



I also have a bottle of wine that one of my cousins gave me for Christmas that I really enjoyed. I actually enjoyed their bottle. I never opened mine so, I think I'll have some of that too!

Unless inspiration hits me, I'll give blogging a break for the weekend too. But, you know me... I'm liable to renig on that one at anytime. It's quite obvious now that I'm addicted to this medium. Here I am writing a post about relaxing and not writing a post. Well, I've got to hand it to myself, this is an original. I defy anyone else to tell me where they can find something like this.

I've already written three paragraphs more than I intended to write so, I'm off to enjoy my Friday and my weekend. Have a blessed weekend everyone and don't stand too close to any monkeys. (I couldn't resist that!)

The Maverick of all Bloggers has left the keyboard, for now...

Saturday Seven (7 Things I'm Feeling Right Now)

1. Ethiopian Coffee
Too black, too strong, but just right to kickstart your morning.

2. Beyonce "I Am Sasha Fierce"
I said I wasn't feeling it at first but, it grew on me!

3. Foreign Exchange "Leave it all Behind"
Original R&B, mixed with a little acid jazz, and just a touch of funk.

4. Anthony Hamilton "The Point of it All"
The point being, this is real soul music here... the way it's supposed to sound.

5. "Seven Pounds" starring Will Smith
A far better movie than the critics are telling you it is. It makes you think and it keeps you engaged until you finally figure out just what it is this movie is about. After all, isn't that what good movies do?

6. Taraji P. Henson, Actress
I have been loving her since the movie "Baby Boy". She has just been giving us one great performance after another.

7. "The Right Mistake" novel by Walter Mosley
He's still my favorite author!

Black Boys Don't Read

Omar Tyree Official Website

One of my favorite writers is Omar Tyree. I own several of his novels and have been reading him since the early 1990's. I was driving to get some coffee this morning and he just happened to be on the radio. Of course, he was pitching his latest novel and discussing something close to my heart. The literacy or the presumed lack of it among young black males. He said that he was trying to write children's books aimed at black boys but, he was having trouble getting his publishers to back him. He said that the presumed notion of most publishers is that young African American males don't read and on this presumption alone, nothing was ever geared towards them.

This troubles me because I'm going to assume that little white boys equally don't like to read. They don't like to read what is put out there for them to read... which is nothing. What I'm saying is that males in general aren't catered to in the literary world at any age. Give them something to read that they are interested in when they are young and they will read. Once they start reading and begin to like it, they will gravitate to other things. This is not just black boys but, little white boys, Hispanic boys, Asian Boys, and what have you.

It angers me though that black boys (and in the larger sense black people) are labeled as non-readers. Part of this theory was destroyed years ago when authors like Omar Tyree, Terri McMillan, Bebe Moore Campbell, and Walter Mosley found a market in the black community for their early works that turned into ca$h money cows for publishing houses. My wife and I began reading and collecting books by African American authors around that same time.

My own love for reading came from both my mother and my grandfather. They read to me as a child and this made me want to read and enjoy going to libraries. It probably also led to me wanting to write my own stories. The first serious book that I read was the Autobiography of Malcolm X. I read it for "Negro History week" when I was in the 7th grade and read it again when I was a grown man, around the same time that Spike Lee made the movie with Denzel Washington of the same name. That book had a profound effect on me and it led me to read Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Eldridge Cleaver, and most of the writers of the Harlem Renaissance. I haven't stopped reading since.

I'm not saying that every black child, male or female, is going to read as much as I do but, they will read provided the material that is put in front of them is interesting and speaks to them. If they are going to go on to college and higher learning, reading is going to be a must so, they might as well begin at the formative ages.

I applaud authors like Omar Tyree because he wrote some children's books aimed at young black males and he told his interviewer that he was going to get them out there if he had to publish them himself. After all, that's how he got started. Do any of you remember an underground classic called "Fly Girl" that was set right here in Philadelphia, PA that got passed around from barber shop to hair salon back in the late eighties? That was Omar Tyree's first project and he sold it out of his car. By the time Simon & Schuster picked it up and published it in 1993, every black person of a certain age in Philly had already read it. Now, that's publishing hip-hop style.

Much respect for Brother Tyree for standing up for the next generation.

One Of My Guilty Pleasures

Zane's Erotica Noir

I must admit that black erotica author, Zane, has been one of my guilty pleasures for years. I first remember a female acquaintance of mine passing around a book on a flight to Atlanta called "Addicted" several years back. It was about a young woman with a sex addiction that was brought on by years of abuse. I loved the book so, I bought it and some of her other books... "Nervous", "The Sex Chronicles", "The Sex Chronicles II: Goin' Buck Wild", and "Afterburn"... as soon as I got to the ATL and found a black book store. I've purchased several of her anthologies such as "Chocolate Flava" too.

For years, I thought that "Zane" just might be a man... (at least, that was the rumor going around) but, then she began writing for Essence magazine for awhile and I began hearing her in interviews on the radio. I was pleased to know that she was, in fact, a woman and she was a real person and not a group of writers going under one name. (That was another rumor floating around. Don'tcha just hate e-mail and internet rumors?)

Zane was on the radio this weekend promoting her latest anthologies... "Purple Panties" and "Honey Flava". I haven't read a novel or any book since February and she has always been great summer reading. I think I will stop by my favorite afrocentric bookstore and pick up my copies... I'll be the one in the long trench coat with the sunglasses on (smile)!

Is Walter Mosley A Black Existentialist ?

Is Walter Mosley, more than just a writer of light fiction... is he a black existentialist? Before I begin, I should explain what existentialism is...

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to deities or authorities creating it for them. It emerged as a movement in twentieth-century literature and philosophy, though it had forerunners in earlier centuries. Existentialism generally postulates that the absence of a transcendent force (such as God) means that the individual is entirely free, and therefore, ultimately responsible. It is up to humans to create an ethos of personal responsibility outside any branded belief system. In existentialist views, personal articulation of being is the only way to rise above humanity's absurd condition of much suffering and inevitable death.

I know... it sounds pretty depressing, doesn't it? I confess, there is a part of me that is a bit of a nerd. As a teenager, I read books by Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, and Franz Kafka... all known writers of the existentialist school of thought. I was also reading Richard Wright's darker novels ("Black Boy" and "Native Son"), which also seemed to belong to existentialism. Some people will argue that Richard Wright was what they call a "Naturalistic" writer... another
blog for another time.

I have read three novels by Walter Mosley this year "Blonde Faith", "Killing Johnny Fry", and "Diablique" and I'm wondering if I have discovered, at long last, a black Existentialist. In all three novels, the main charactor seems locked into a life and set of circumstances that are beyond his control. The protaganists seem bored, hopeless, and depressed until they take action... an action that gives them meaning and purpose... a reckless action that could mean their downfall yet, makes them feel more alive than at any other time in their lives.

I am curious as to Mr. Mosley's philisophical leanings. Of course, I know that one could argue that the protaganist in any story must overcome odds that are beyond his or her control...but in the existentialist novel... the character's response to those odds is a response that defines his/her existence... a response that redeems them somewhat... which is what makes the story fall in this genre. Plus, the themes of meaninglessness, sadness, and betrayal by life itself... I found these themes in all three novels.

Mr. Mosley is not a lightweight. No indeed. He is up there with some of our best writers but, I defer, I am biased... he is my favorite. Oh, and just for the record, I am not an existentialist. In order to be a true existentialist, one would also have to be an atheist, to which I am not. Nor am I one who believes that there is no meaning to life, no pre-determined meaning to life. I do believe in these things and I do have hope. It gets strained at times but, it's still there.

Welcome Back, Diane!

Diane McKinney-Whetstone

It's time to talk about books again. About 13 or 14 years ago, I read a novel called "Tumbling" by a then unknown Black author named Diane McKinney-Whetstone. What I enjoyed about the novel most was that the city of Philadelphia was the star of the story. It was so nice to read a book that has familiar streets, places you've been, and characters that remind you of people you know. I loved it, raved about it, and was the first person in line to buy her second book, "Tempest Rising". I also bought her subsequent books, "Blues Dancing" and "Leaving Cecil Street". All three of these books are set in my 'native' (West) Philadelphia.

Diane has a good read for details. She got every crack in the sidewalk right. I can tell that she obviously has lived on these same streets. Today, while surfing the web, I find that she has written another novel, "Trading Dreams at Midnight". I can't wait to purchase this book. Each one of her novels has made me hungry for the next one and it's been at least a seven year wait. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.

Say It Ain't So, Walter!

Walter Mosley

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a big fan of Black author, Walter Mosley. I have all of his novels but, the "Easy Rawlins" novels are my particular favorites.

Around 1990, someone told my wife about the author and his books as a recommended "must read" for me. However, it was only after I saw the movie "Devil in a Blue Dress" with Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle in 1995 that I really took an interest. After seeing the movie, I bought everything with Walter Mosley's name on it.

There are 10 Easy Rawlins novels and one collection of short stories to date... all of which I own. Upon reading the end of his latest book, "Blonde Faith", it appears that the famed detective meets an untimely end on a California Highway! (Oops, I do hope this "spoiler" doesn't discourage you from checking out this latest installment.) Say it ain't so, Walter! Please find a way to bring Easy Rawlins back for fans like myself.

Footnote: Check out my Walter Mosley bookcase on the sidebar and full-view page at Shelfari to learn more about his books.

Trivia: Former President Clinton stated that Walter Mosley is one of his favorite authors too.