Cynique

My e-book has gone to press and will soon be available for downloading on line. Hard copies will also be for sale. This is the new and improved version of The Only One, my novel about an interracial love triangle that will put the advice of self-appointed relationship guru, Steve Harvey, to shame. It might also make prudes blush. This is not "your grandfather's book". It's your grandmother's hot novel. What this quick-read also has going for it, is that it's a delicious slice of black life, serving up conflicted characters with appetites for lust and cravings for love. Watch for more details on how to check out this upcoming release!

You are right about trees, Delano. They can die and still be standing with nests among their branches where birds live and thrive! How does this apply to humans. Organ donation, I guess.

Funny, the first thing that came to my mind reading the above article was that with this supposedly being "The Year of the African", as exemplified by an African director and African actors starring in and winning Oscars for " 12 years a Slave", honors that further include new "it" girl Nigerian Lupita Nyong'o''s being selected as PEOPLE magazine's "most beautiful" pick, who do we having playing 2 African chicks in a movie about twins from wealthy Ibo families, but high-yellow, bi-racial Thandie Newton and light-skinned, African American actress Anika Noni Rose. I'm sayin... Not surprising. Just amusing. Guess this balances out Africans beating out directors and actors of black American descent when it comes to telling our slave stories.

Life is a state of flux. Sometimes objects and entities are vibrating at a different rate of speed and they shift in and out of a common dimension. You can't find something you've lost and then later it turns up at the place you're sure you searched before. I'm sure my aura is electrified and I seem to attract clutter. Cords laying straight around me will soon curl up and become tangled. Synchronicity is a part of my everyday existence. Words are always paired up when I'm reading and watching TV or on the computer and the TV is on. The other day as I was keying the phrase "don't blame me", these words were simultaneously being sung in a song playing on the television. "Coincidences" like this happen to me almost daily. My life has its ups and downs but I've started to notice certain things. Strangers are always friendly to me. I can go to a department store and people I don't even know will smile and nod to me. I find this curious because I am not an especially friendly looking person. Maybe it's because I am old and I remind them of someone in their family. A couple of months ago, while I was line at a Dollar store, I was fumbling through my purse to find my credit card to pay for items that totalled $17 or so. The lady behind me immediately volunteered to pay my bill. I was extremely touched but I found my card and paid the bill myself. Often at social gatherings, there will be someone I meet who I make an immediate connection with; usually a man. Then all during the course of the evening our eyes keep meeting. I really find this strange because these guys are usually much much younger than me. I wouldn't call it a flirtation. Just a - what, I don't know. Acquaintance from another life? I've wandered through life, traveling a journey where for some reason when people like me, it is in spite of myself, not for myself. It's like they rationalize my character flaws, and lately everybody seems to want to pray for me. I can't understand why they don't see me for the devil that I am and just simply give up on me. Recently a friend snapped a picture of me with her phone camera and when we viewed it, there was light all around my head which she claimed was a halo. Wat's up wid dat?? Maybe these things aren't unique to me, and they happen to everybody. Even so, I find them curious.

Think so? Corporate sponsors of the Clippers are pulling out and the league and other owners are ready to act. The team will survive but I don't think Donald Sterling will, as their owner. Paula Deene went through this. She made a comeback but has not regained her former status. These racists don't lose their fortunes but they lose their credibility. Sterling and Farmer Bundy do represent the mindset of certain segment of white people who will silently support them, but other high-profile whites prefer to be politically-correct. Blacks as a whole still do not command a lot of respect from white America, and are just tolerated by those who don't want to be thought of as bigots, and this dynamic extends to the highest office in the land. Of course Republican lawmakers don't care how others regard them, they will continue to thwart President Obama because they are white males who refuse to defer to a black one. Repeal of voting laws are just another version of Sterling's "don't bring any Blacks to my turf". What's really ironic is that the old standby tactic of an economic boycott poses no threat in the Clippers situation. Because they can't afford the prices, black faces are few and far between among the crowds that fill the arenas to be entertained by the hooping and dunking of tattooed NBA gladiators. Black non attendance will have little impact. Yes, race is an artifical construct, but somebody forgot to tell this to the millions who continue to use color as an occasion to discriminate and despise.

Post Racial America is as big a joke as its white one-percenter plantation owners, and People magazine's "adoption" of African Lupita Nyong'o as its most beautiful poster girl, can't cancel this.

Excerpts from an article related to this subject. I should think that Blacks will certainly benefit from these proposals. Yesterday, the Obama Administration, by way of Attorney General Eric Holder, reaffirmed its support for a current proposal that, if passed, would nudge our nation's legal system a step in a more civil direction. Mr. Holder spoke Thursday before the U.S. Sentencing Commission, whose duty it is to vote annually on what sort of instructions need to be updated for federal judges to reference when handing down sentences on all of the various cases they see. This April, the Sentencing Commission is considering a vote to overhaul the current recommended sentences for all federal nonviolent drug-related offenses. The new regulations would cut federal drug sentencing by an average of 11 months per case in a move that Mr. Holder's Department of Justice says will apply to roughly 70% of future federal defendants accused in drug-related crimes - and he supports it. Mr. Holder and President Obama have both publicly stated that, in their view, our current drug laws harass, arrest, and incarcerate a disproportionate number of minorities and lower class citizens, but any "bipartisan" support they hope to get for such a vote always comes down to money. Wikimedia Commons U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Under the proposed guidelines, federal prison rolls would decrease by over 6,500 inmates over the next five years. This can have an immediate fiscal impact on the cash-strapped communities supporting these overcrowded prisons, but not everyone is supportive of such a reduction in our prison populations.

Interesting comments, Chris. The video was well done. Troy, did the young people who you promised would share some thoughts with us, bail?

You're a gentleman and a scholar, Chris. No only that, my initials are CDB, too! What are your thoughts about this scat video?

Gee Whiz Chris, to me, the only reason that selection by Nellie can be associated with hip hop is that HE is on it. If the CW singer was singing it alone, then the last thing that would come to my mind is that the song was a hip hop one. There are rappin singers and singin rappers. But a song is a song is a song, and a song is music and rap is rhythm. But not to worry. They can co-exist. I would be interested in what people who are actually of the "younger" generation have to say about all this. I think a lot the Millenials would be hard pressed to give a coherent defintion of hip hop. Ironically, I think they would be a little more articulate when it came to Jazz and Blues and would probably describe it as old school music that old folks like - not music that the majority of them will become converted to via hip hop. I think what attracts them to Rap are the beats as much as the lyrics, which they may be able to rotely recite, not really concerned with the content. As for the ones of the Gen-Xers, rap and hip hop are just taken for granted, not something they are fixated on, and a lot of them of are into the love songs that I would not consider hip hop. R&B is still alive and well and smooth jazz has a respectible following. I cherish the past, but I don't think you can go home again. Straight ahead jazz will remain esoteric and music in general will just be something people download and hum along with while texting and keying and posting when they're not watching prime time soap operas and reality shows on TV. But good music is good music and as long as we have ears, it will never die.

Well, Chris, the criteria for being hip hop music does appear to be very blurred. I have a problem with you using hip hop and its bastard child, rap, as interchangeable when making your point. To say that hip hop is musical does not make rap, music. And it's like you determine a song to be hip hop if the person performing it has a MC in front of their handle, or otherwise identifies themself as belonging to the hip hop nation. To me. such music does not stand alone as being hip hop, and the only reason it can make such a claim is because a rapper is fronting it. (BTW, I always thought Lauren Hill’s was striking a blow for feminism rather than hip hop.) Or, is this to say that rappers can’t sing. I’m simply contending that you can’t sing and rap at the same time, so when a rapper breaks out in song, he/she is doing this between rapping. I repeat. Just because music is played or sung or sampled in the background when a rapper is rapping, does not mean the rapper is singing. As you allude to, when a person sings, a musician can listen to the melody and score it with notes on a staff so that another musician can read this and play it on an instrument. Can this be done with rap spitting? Or record scratching? I would think that rap purist would not want it classified as music. Art form? yes; Music? No. I know, I know, I’m getting technical. Which is a no-no in the hip hop culture with its “keeping it real” pretensions. (time for an emoticon) Just because I don’t take hip hop as seriously as you do, doesn’t mean I’m dissin’ it, however. This is a generation gap, of course. I’m disappointed with the younger generation of Blacks for marginalizing Jazz and the Blues to embrace the minstrelcy of hip hop that includes the babbling of rap. But I still take pride in the diversity of black music. Rap on.

Chris, I was under the impression that hip hop was a life style and that rap was the "music" of this lifestyle. Are there examples of hip hop music other than rap, - renditions that will be distinguisable from R&B? I don't associate scatting with call and response. Jazz scatting is a solo exercise. Also jazz combo musicians traditionally defer to each other for solos. And I take "call and response" literally, so I don't apply this term to couterpunal jazz performances.( I suspect you will be miffed if I make reference to Mel Torme the white guy who is considered the consummate jazz scatter, and white Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker as skillful purveyors of inter play between instruments.) I would agree that they are examples of white musicians who have stolen jazz and made it there own. But that's because black people didn't guard and support their own creation. (Could this be because jazz is too cerebral) Rap, however, is certainly reminiscent of free-wheeling BeBop ala Charlie Parker. My brain is hardwired to be in sync with the music I grew up listening to. Political statements in the context of frenetic spoken word performances just don't resonate with me or do accounts of life on the mean streets. Ironically, reading rap verses does appeal to the poet in me. I regard music as a gateway to relaxation and reminiscence. It's not something I want to work at; it's something I want to enjoy. I love 4-part vocal harmony because it is a human chord. This form of singing is almost a lost art but it's music to my ears. I took a class in musical appreciation in high school to get an easy credit. I became familiar with all the old classical favorites way back then and that was enough to sustain me when it came to this genre. BTW, I use the emoticons so I will not be taken too seriously because I have been known to come across as hostile to some folks

LOL. Why would it make a difference as to whether or not Rap is music? Does calling it music anoint it as being legitimate? I make the distinction, because Rap is not sung, it is spat. Likewise, scat. It is not vocalized, it's scatted. It's gibberish, albeit entertaining gibberish. And is "call and response" a component of Jazz? Or something exclusively associated with swing musician Cab Calloway? Yes, orchestral classical music can incite when it becomes synchronized with personal emotion. Rapping incites because of the power of suggestion that its lyrics fuel. And you can believe HItler was rapping while Wagner was being sampled. I think it's enough to acknowledge that Rap is a genre. Appreciating classical music and jazz is an acquired taste and developing an affinity for it is an individual pursuit that I don't think liking Rap will give rise to. But, that's just me

You're a prophet, Troy. You see the handwriting on the wall. Sometimes it gets lonely on that mountain top, but that's the price you pay for caring about your fellow man. Karma is on your side. What goes around, comes around.

How do you classify this music? Sounds kinda like Jazz fusion to me.

My thinking on this subject is that you and Troy are a variety of the conspiracy buff mind-set . People like you have AHA! mentalities. They immediately key in on opportunities to "out" corporations and declare: "I'm on to you. You can't fool me. You can bamboozle others, but I see through your schemes!" A certain satisfaction is to be gained from knowing that you are smarter and more astute than other folks; but bristling in frustration is obviously the trade-off, especially for those who have a vested interest in thwarting these monopolies. People who are oblivious to what is happening are dumb consumers blindly pursuing what they want instead of what they need. Ignorance is bliss. Then there are others who are philosophical about being exploited and take comfort in believing that honest virtue is its own reward. Old Cynics like me, don't give a damn. In my little self-absorbed world, the instant gratification of convenience is a priority. e.g. It's more convenient for me to have credit cards with low limits, and deal with plastic instead of paper. I never pay attention to high interest rates, or fees or bottom lines. I just pay the amount of money I want to free up for available credit every month and use my dinky little Visas and Mastercards for "easy" purchasing. I have no intention of paying these crooks off. They are just a vehicle for my convenience. I prefer their flexibility over debit cards which are also more suceptible to fraud and theft. If FaceBook is gathering information on me for purposes of putting me on e-mailing lists and bogging me down with ads, I just figure that's the price I pay for having access to a public forum that allows me to vent and harass and post pictures of myself. I delete unsolicited pop-ups and rarely buy anything on line unless I can't find it anywhere else, wherein the convience factor kicks in. I do have some options in my victimization. When FaceBooks starts costing money, I'l be outta there. Ready to pass it by, having been there, done that.

I don't consider Rap, per se, as music. It's spoken word and I have always believed that it is a throw-back to the African griots, and a verbal form of improvisational jazz. Music soothes the savage beast but rap incites it with its hypnotic cadence. Not surprising, I never got into gangsta Rap or Rap as political commentary. I like the carefree renditions like "It was a very good day" by Ice Cube and the "I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind" by Snoop Dog. And I do like Lil Wayne's rhymes because I think they are very clever. He a good punster, too, and I love puns. Tthey tell me Kanye and Jay-Z are masters of the art, and I assume this is true. My generation goes back further than the Temptations. It goes back to the extremely melodic ballads of the 40s and 50s which compile the "Great American Song Book", old standards as interpreted by vocalists like Nat Cole and Ella Fitzgerald and Johnny Mathis and Sarah Vaughn - Frank Sinatra and Nancy Wilson and, of course, Billy Holiday. And the thing about these songs is that their lyrics are so exquisite that they stand on their own without a melody. Compare the zeitgeist of that era with its music and there is a correlation. So, music does define a generation. I remember when I first heard "When Doves Cry" by Prince. It left me cold. No base line;sung in a monotone; cryptic lyrics. Of course, my kids loved it. Guess why? Me, I preferred "I wanna be your lover" and When you were mine", naturally. Prince, however, is in a class by himself. But he's a terrible rapper, IMO. Music is the universal language. For me it is divinely Zen. It fills the spaces between the lines.

Well, strange things are afoot,Troy. The video that intrigued me began with a woman speaking in a deep soothing voice and who, after inducing me into a relaxed state, instructed me to imagine that I was surrounded by a breathtaking landscape and before me was a beautiful majestic white building whose stairs I was instructed to picture myself climbing, encountering pleasant friendly belngs along the way, including all my loved ones who have passed on. Upon reaching the top of the steps I was then told to visuaize 2 huge gold carved doors before me. When they opened a vast awesome library was revealed where I was greeted by a warm cordial librarian. She proceeded to suggest that I open up a big record book available and concentrate on revisiting any period of my past life, just immersing myself in the experience and allowing thoughts to flow into my brain. This I was able to do with some degree of success but choosing to go back to my childhood, raised more questions than answers. Anyhow you get the drift of this exercise that came to a close when I left the library and walked back down the steps. So what happens today when for my own purposes and to fulfill your request I google akashic records to retrieve the video? Again a whole array of sites appear to provide info and invitations. Any other time I would've copied and saved the "share" link of a YouTube video that interested me. Why I didn't do that this time is a mystery. Anyhow, I tried and tried to find the video I'd previously watched but I couldn't! It seemed to have disappeared. However, while searching I came across an article that totally resonated with me and made me wonder about the claim of there being no such thing a coincidence. Was I supposed to find this distracting article that exposed my fickleness and ambiguity and vacillation? All I know is that I suddenly realize that I am desperately seeking to find my QWN truth and when I find it I will know it because it will be MINE. This is my journey and I will continue to stumble along, suspecting that death is when the answers are revealed. Below is a copy of the article that revived and inspired my instrospection. After you read it, you can create a link for it since reprinting articles here is a "no-no". "I hear a lot of rather confusing perspectives on WHERE the Akashic Records are located. The idea that the Records are some sort of cosmic library or that there is a "Book of Life" that holds the Akashic Records unfortunately give the impression that the Akashic Records are ... elsewhere. The Akashic Records are rather abstract in nature, and so of course we've tried to make them more concrete and accessible in our imaginations, so that we can more easily grasp the concept of a database that stores each and every choice we've ever made. Unfortunately, by trying to make the Akashic Records more concrete, we've placed them outside of ourselves and created a disconnect of sorts from this wisdom source. The Akashic Records are everywhere. They are contained in the fifth-dimensional aspect of each and every one of us, and the energy that connects us all. The Internet is the best analogy for the Records - like the Akasha, the Internet is everywhere and accessible from anywhere in the world. We are inherently part of this information super-highway. Your Akashic Records is right where you are sitting, right now. It's seeming separation from you is simply a matter of density, not location. Sure, it's helpful in our minds to visualize ourselves "going" somewhere when we read the Records. it makes us feel like we are "doing" something. But I've also had students who so emphatically project their vital force energy "out there" in order to feel like they are REALLY "doing" something to access the Akashic Records that doing any kind of reading work left them tired and depleted. If you're accessing the Akashic Records, remember they are not far away at all. They are you. To your infinite wisdom." Andrrea Hess

Ice-T comes to my mind when I think of Rappers who flipped; going from a cop-hating Rapper to playing a law enforcement character on a TV series. He is a classic example of a role player who switched personas and easily made the transistion. Violence as art certainly does not benefit its audience, and it obviously does not hinder its performers - unless they get shot. In the inner city universe, gansta rappers are like anti-matter. They neutralize the positive by glamorizing the negative. Anti matter is apparently a natural phenomenon. Bad exists because good is no fun. Far be it for me to try and explain Game of Thrones to anyone. I just watch it and for some reason am captivated by it. New plot lines are being introduced seemingly.

I can't believe that I have lived this long and professed to be a spiritual person and touted the benefits of meditation and Karma and achieving nirvana, and referred to God as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, and yet be so unfamiliar with the akashic records! You live and learn. I vaguely remember having heard the term but never explored it until you, Delano, mentioned it. Thank you! Because of your question, I was motivated to google (sorry, Troy) the term and all the information that came up for my benefit was truly a revelation - if not an epiphany! Perusing all the literature on the subject was as though someone had read my mind. I don't know what conclusion to draw from the fact that what I had always imagined as an alternative to religious dogma, is a discipline that already exists just waiting there for me to contemplate. It is, indeed, a lesson in the old wisdom that seers and mystics and gurus refer to. And it explains a lot of things to me; specifically why people become so entranced with Jesus. He provides them with a symbol who represents a higher power. Choosing to accpet this, requires no effort; just a surrender that comforts. What I, personally, have been seeking is to get in touch with why I am who I am, and the Akashic records offer a way to tap into the source that might enable me to do this. Others prefer not to deal with what is, but rather with what will be, and they focus on prayer as a coping mechanism and Jesus as their usher into the hereafter. So be it. I prefer to go where my mind takes me. The bible refers to God as the Alpha and the Omega which is as good a term as any to define the end-all-be-all that I believe is at the core of the universe, and is the origin of our existence. I clicked on to a YouTube link that walked me through a way to enter the akashic realm and although I found it challenging, its potential was enough to inspire me to continue revisiting the experience in hopes of achieving enlightment. "My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe, there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists". Nikola Tesla.

Oops. Looks like I was trying to bury The Undertaker before his time. My grandson tells me that the pro-wrestler who just died was Ultimate Warrior, not The Undertaker. Sorry.

Rap and hip-hop are officially mainstream. A frequent category on Jeopardy! is "pop culure" and there are always questions about these subjects. A couple of days ago, the final Jeopardy! question had something to do with what rapper co-opted a historical event in entitling his latest album. One of the contestants, a bespectacled middle-aged white guy got the right answer: Jay-Z (Magna "Carter")

Again I hasten to add that I'm not a big fan of FaceBook but, unlike you guys, I have had some very passionate discussions and intellectual exchanges with posters on FaceBook. Religion and politics, 2 staples on Facebook, provide ample material for debate.

My grandson was shocked and sorry to hear that the famous wrestler who went by the name "The Undertaker" had died. So were millions of other wrestling fans. The parodized version of this sport enjoys a large enthusiastic following on TV. Why? Because it is a chest-beating, macho exercise in violence, replete with body slams, head locks, fisticuffs and bloody noses. Making it even more compelling is that all of this mayhem is conducted within the context of a good guy versus the bad guy scenario. If this low brow choreographed foolishness isn't vicarious entertainment, then I don't know what is. It certainly makes a case for the impact of empathy To contend that watching and enjoying violence damages our psyche may be true. But to imply that those whose reject "violence as art" sanitize their sensibilities is debateable. People have daily encounters that vex them to the point where they wish they could get away with avenging the slings and arrows they are obliged to silently endure. But opting to repress their violent impulses, and the frustration caused by doing this can gradually manifest itself in other ways that contribute to personality dysfunctions. Women develop tension headaches; men become impotent in the bed. And pity all the poor cats whose owners come home and kick them after a work place humiliation has angered them. Meoooow. Think how much better off these uptight people would be if they'd watch a gangland character in the Boardwalk TV series shoot up a speakeasy! The message sent by the non-violent protests during the civil rights movement was that great sacrifice and will power are required to abstain from the natural desire to strike out at those who are abusing and mistreating you. Not doing so makes your cause noble and notable and brave because it is a sign of strength to refrain from doing what is the normal thing to do. It also exposes the aggressors as being uncivilized. H. Rap Brown, the notorious civil rights radical, once declared that "violence is as American as cherry pie." Indeed, America is a violent power hungry, war mongering nation. Not unlike the dynasties in Game of Thrones.

Nothing came up when I clicked on the link. My thoughts on the subject would be that the vicarious experiences provided by witnessing violence on the screen provides a catharsis for people. Violence is a survivial mechanism still present in our species and it aids and abets our adrenalin glands. if you happen to be civilized enough to abstain from acting out your repressed instincts, watching others commit violence can induce a reaction that both repels and thrills. If you lead dull conservative lives, this kind of reaction provides an excitement akin to that of forbidden fruit.