Troy

I finally got around to checking this out. I'd seen this site before, stumbling across it looking for song lyrics. The interesting thing about his notes is, like poetry (or anything said or done), people bring their own interpretations. It does not mean that Chabon is right or wrong. It just means that Lamar lyrics are open to interpretation (which of course is the point). As plain as Lamarr lyrics were, I did not agree completely with Chabon's interpretation. I also saw a mistakes in the lyrics (though they don't materially impact the meaning). I get the impression both Chabon and the person who transcribed the lyrics, are not Black.

These men are active in the Harlem community, and have been for decades; Brother Leroy Baylor / Media, Mosque No. 7 and Dr. James McIntosh / C.E.M.O.T.E.P. (Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to African People). ​They are not celebrities but are actually doing conscious things of consequence in the community. Of course you will not read about them in the Black media today. The are direct links to Malcolm X, and The Black Power Movement. The program is called The Gilchrist Experience and was recorded on Feb. 11, 2015

To be clear, I was not griping about SNL, I was complaining about the length of the 3.5 hour anniversary show. I do watch SNL from time to time and have most of the 40 years it has been on air. The fact that the show was being stretched out makes sense, it sure felt like it was being dragged out. It seems childish for Dennis Miller to have boycotted the show because he is conservative there has to have been more to it than that. You know I can't tell the difference between the comedienne who imitates Sarah Palin and Sarah Palin. No, I had no interest in seeing the All Star game. Honestly I've heard very little about it. I even missed the slam dunk contest: Basketball, most sports don't mean much to me until the games mean something to the players. Which is why I enjoy NCAA March Madness, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, etc. Now I have been to pro games but I like to sit close when I can really appreciate the athleticism. But the ticket price are so high in NYC I can't really afford to go very often.

Thanks Del. I truly appreciate the supportive and kind words. You are right; for all practical purposes I have no competition. This was not always the case and there are many reasons we have come to this point. It is not so much that it is meaningless to me, it is meaningless to society as a whole. This too was not always true.. Did you see the article I shared from Ebony from just 15 years ago? It perfectly illustrates the shift in what Black people view as important. No one that I'm aware of publishes articles like that anymore. Apparently reporting on the activities of entrepreneurs on the web, does not generate any interest. In reality this type of content does generate interest, it simply does not generate as much interest as another story on some celebrity, ideally a scandalous story. Black platforms are largely controlled by corporations who only care about revenue, and therefore focus on what is most popular. The few remaining large Black-owned platforms, in an effort to remain competitive, mirror the behavior of corporations, as this is viewed as the best, indeed only strategy to succeed. This also explain the competitive behavior I've encountered from these entities. Over time readers come to see what these so called Black media companies cover as being what IS MOST important. The only people who might look beyond and question what dominated the mainstream Black media are those old enough to know what we had and lost, or those inquisitive enough to look deeper. These readers are my audience and supporters. Finally, and this is the most disheartening thing of all, consider the following: White media will cover an author like Attica Locke when they are targeting a white audience, but white media platforms designed for Black audiences do not. Black-owned media follows the script White media uses when targeting their Black audiences. Do you see what I'm saying here? In other words, an Attica Locke will get more coverage by white owned media targeted to white audiences and will get much less coverage in media targeted to Black audiences--whether it is Black or white owned. So I'll also talk about writers like Attica Locke who is a brilliant novelist and who also happens to write for the TV series Empire. The white-owned Black sites will focus on Terrance, Taraji and Lee Daniels, but AALBC.com will ensure Attica is recognized.

I watched my first episode of Empire last night. This was after watching the 3.5 hour Saturday Night Live special. All told, I watched about 6 hours of TV yesterday. I promised myself I would never do that again. Even if I enjoyed every sec of what I watched I'm sure I would still feel like it was a colossal waste of time. I feel like I'll end up watching 6 hours of TV again at some point; you know how it is when you binge drink, wake up the next morning and swear you'll never do it again, but you invariably end up doing it again anyway.... So no one has done that? OK maybe it is just me, but you see my point. At any rate, Saturday Night Live would have been a much better program if they edited out at least an hour. Chevy Chase was a shadow of his former self. I have to assume he has been sick, it was good to see him, but sad at the same time. Where was Dennis Miller, and what was the point of Eddie Murphy coming out if he wasn't going to do something at least marginally funny? Those who sat through all 3.5 hours will "get" the Saturday Night Dead reference. The acting in Empire is really good. I also noticed that Attica Locke has a screen writing credit, and I know she can write. I just don't really care for these types of stories any more. I understand the new series (Power?) with 50 Cent is more of the same.. There is plenty of drama in Empire so I can see why it has broad appeal. Taraji's character was called a bitch by at least 4 different people for no apparent reason. Do people, even in the music industry call women bitches to their faces, in front of other women, so freely? My on demand service did not have the first episode, so I had to start with episode #2, so maybe I missed the reason for all of the hostility against Taraji's character. Maybe I'm just an out of the loop prude. I felt compelled to watch Empire because of all the praise it has been getting, despite the obligatory criticism for depicting Blacks in stereotypically negative roles. I doubt I'll continue watching. If I do it will not be to end an evening of 6 hours of TV Besides, there are a couple of books I want need to get to.

I saw two of the movies listed above I saw Interstellar, which was pretty good, and The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I thought was a silly movie (I did not care for it), but I can see it winning for production and costume design. I did not see very many films this year. In fact the only "top Black film" I saw this year was Dear White People, and I just watched that this month. I do want to see Selma, before it leaves the theaters.

Kam shared his 2015 Oscar Predictions

Oscar Predictions 2015 Who Will Win, Who Deserves to Win, Who Was Snubbed by Kam Williams While Selma’s Academy Awards stock plummeted in the wake of allegations of historical inaccuracies, that of American Sniper simultaneously skyrocketed, thanks to both booming box-office returns and very positive word of mouth. However, Sniper probably had too much ground to make up to catch Birdman, the early favorite in the Best Picture sweepstakes. I envision Birdman garnering 4 awards overall, followed by The Grand Budapest Hotel, with 3. The only other multiple winners will likely be Boyhood, Whiplash and The Theory of Everything, at 2 each. Faithful readers will remember that a year ago, yours truly accurately predicted the results in 21 of 21 categories (I skipped the short films), so anyone who used my picks in their office pool fared pretty well. However, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Besides forecasting the winners below, I also suggest which nominees are the most deserving. Furthermore, because some great performances are invariably overlooked by the Academy entirely, I also point out those who should’ve been nominated. The 87th Academy Awards will air live on ABC this Sunday, February 22nd at 8:30 PM ET. Best Picture Will Win: Birdman Deserves to Win: Selma Overlooked: Nightcrawler Best Director Will Win: Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman) Deserves to Win: Ava Duvernay (Selma) Overlooked: Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) Best Actor Will Win: Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) Deserves to Win: Michael Keaton (Birdman) Overlooked: Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler) Best Actress Will Win: Julianne Moore (Still Alice) Deserves to Win: Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night) Overlooked: Jennifer Aniston (Cake) Best Supporting Actor Will Win: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) Deserves to Win: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) Overlooked: Rick Garcia (Nightcrawler) Best Supporting Actress Will Win: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) Deserves to Win: Emma Stone (Birdman) Overlooked: Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year) Best Original Screenplay: Will Win: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo (Birdman) Deserves to Win: Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) Overlooked: Paul Webb (Selma) Best Adapted Screenplay: Will Win: Graham Moore (The Imitation Game) Deserves to Win: Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) Overlooked: Peter Landesman, Gary Webb and Nick Schou (Kill the Messenger) Predictions for Secondary Categories Animated Feature: How to Train Your Dragon 2 Foreign Language Film: Ida Documentary Feature: Citizenfour Cinematography: Birdman Costume Design: The Grand Budapest Hotel Production Design: The Grand Budapest Hotel Film Editing: Boyhood Makeup and Hairstyling: The Grand Budapest Hotel Original Score: The Theory of Everything Best Song: Glory (Selma) Sound Editing: American Sniper Sound Mixing: Whiplash Visual Effects: Interstellar

OK Del I'll be waiting.

Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected One consequence of treating girls the same way your treat boys...

A book that followed those 100 students would be a good book or documentary Chris.

Chris that is an unfortunate story. Do you ever listen to the sports commentator Frank Deford?

No Cynique, the issues I raised are not unique to Black folks. It is just that Black folks, suffer the impact more profoundly (harsher and greater duration), and recover more slowly than our white counterparts. I know most people are not like me in this regard, but I have less than zero interest in reality TV. The programs always strike me as contrived, designed to entertain more than anything else. I've just resigned myself to the fact that I'll never be able to join in any conversations regarding these programs. I have nothing again people who enjoy them, I'm just not one of them. As far as your Mayoral candidate. I'm sure there are many white elected officials who how have done worse--especially in Chicago--than the brother you are referring it is just that Brothers forget they can't get away with the things white folks do. He has no chance of winning. I know something will be done about the wealth gap very soon. This morning I read an brief article in The Economist that said 0.1% of Americans have more wealth than the bottom 90%. This is the great wealth gap in the history of the country. Needless to say this includes a lot of white folks. When so many white folks are adversely impacted, things start to change and improvements are made to remedy the situation. Because when the great masses of white folks begin to suffer, they are liable to revolt and this is not good for business. Black folks of course stand to benefit from whatever changes are made. But we are never the reason for the change and any benefits we are accrue are purely incidental. This goes for the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights legislation. Funny how hard we fought for the right to vote. Now we don't bother to vote. I guess this is another example of us doing what Carter G Woodson described. "...if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit..." Chris I really do believe that if the Black media talked about these things, it would make a difference. Sure there is plenty of information available online, but you have to dig, it does not readily present itself in the filter bubble the social media driven thing the internet has become. But I also realize (trust me) that it is really difficult to make money talking about these things. 100 players scholarships--that is impressive. Any idea what percentage of those student/athletes got their degrees?

Reading this article is both nostalgic and depressing. Living through that period and comparing it to today is the main reason I often rant about the state of Black content and ownership on the web. As we lose publications, and the remaining ones struggle to survive, articles like this are virtually nonexistent today--even in Ebony. The potential reflected above has all but disappeared. Netnoir, The Black Word Today, Black Geeks, and many of the other sites mentioned above have disappeared, without fanfare or remorse. Ellington's, quote was quite telling; when looking for support from Black media companies, they either wanted to shut him down or buy him out. This mentality helps explain why we have lost so much and run so little today on the World Wide Web. I have tried to work with all of these companies at one point or another from collaborating with Omar Wasow on an interview an interview with Johnnie Cochran, before he started Black Planet, when he was running a digital bulletin board called New York Online I have been working with Gwen and Willie Richardson for years now; our most recent collaboration is the two year old Power List site for best selling book read by African Americans. I lament how slowly The Power List is taking to gain traction, because I know if the year was 2000, we would have so much more support. In 2015 the story is very different. Today, Black entrepreneurs cross the digital divide alone. It is no different that when I started creating websites in 1995. Interestingly the early 2000's mirrors the heyday of Black literature. This, of course, is no coincidence.

Crossing the Digital Divide Black Pioneers in the High-Tech World, Ebony Magazine, June 2000 I found this gem of an article on Google's site. I tried to find this article on Ebony's website but I could not. It remains unclear to me why Ebony does not make their digital archives available online, directly, on their own website.

Oh, I would have bet money Janae (whatever her name is) was from Chicagoland. I guess that shows you how much I care about all of this. But Jackie Robinson West (that is the team's name right) is no different that anyone else accused of cheating. Lance Armstrong denied it vigorously, until everyone involved came clean and he began to look stupid. Marion Jones, A-Rod, Ben Johnson, the list of deniers go on. Actually, it make sense to deny the allegations and fight them. You never know, you might just win. Think O-Jay. I read somewhere that the person who ratted out the winning team was also guilty of the same infraction. I don't like the win at any cost mentality. There can be pride in losing too, especially if you have a respectable game against a far superior opponent. But I guess we don't teach that lesson. We are definitely building character, it is the American character, it just happens to be one that is undesirable. One in which your success if defined by how much more you have than the other guy. It is the same character that is completely OK with 0.1% of Americans having the same level of wealth as the bottom 90%. If they have to cheat to get it (which they do), everybody understands--we were raised that way.

On the Children's Bestsellers List for February 22, 2015 All are on the Middle Grade, Children's Best Sellers List #3 Jacqueline Woodson (her book, brown girl dreaming won award that could be won, including a National Book Award) #4 Kwame Alexander (The Crossover) #6 Sharon M. Draper (Out of my Mind) Y'all know me; this is not to imply that we need the NY Times to validate our work. But the reality is that rest of the world and many of us do want this credential, so I do congratulate the all of the authors. Practically speaking making this list puts often puts one into a category that allows them to make enough money to live off their writing. When this happens, all of us in the Black book ecosystem benefits. For example, the Brother on the list (#4 Middle Grade), Kwame Alexander gave me my first break back in 1998 to site a panel to talk about Poetry. I was on the panel with Afaa Michael Weaver, Jessica Care Moore, Kysha N. Brown (Kwame is moderating the panel on the left left of the image. I'm on the far right. Kwame has done a ton to promote Black books for decades. I know the Black book world will be better as a result of him making the list.

Harry, Spike made that film, it is called Red Hook Summer Given your posts, you may like this particular film.

Though the opening credits have nothing to do (that is apparent) to the film, it is pretty cool to watch: Kam completely trashed the film, in an uncharacteristic fashion, in his review: …a boring vampire adventure that’s severely lacking in terms of tension, thrills, premise, storyline, special f/x, plausibility, production value, editing and character development… I had a renewed distain, after learning about the final product, for Spike use of the Kickstarter platform. It seems like the public was taken advantage of, or rather simply taken by this campaign. I blogged about it.

Hi Salena, I guess it depends upon how you define "real benefits," and what you are trying accomplish. If you want to generate some a meaningful profit, that would be a very difficult thing to do on your own. But is has been done. Jessica Care Moore, published Saul Williams' 1st book of poetry and it was the #1 bestselling book on AALBC.con in 1999. But Saul was very talented and Jessica busted her a-- promoting that book. Most people don't have that combination of effort and talent. I'm not saying that you don't (I don't know you), I'm just saying most people don't. Jessica also had the advantage of riding the wave of a period of increased in poetry. Poetry slams were popping up everywhere, think Def Poetry. But that surge of interesting in poetry has largely subsided. One thing in your favor (sort of) is that technology has made the process of publishing a book a lot less costly, but that has also increased competition, as more books are now in the marketplace, competing for readers. The prospects of an unknown, poet making money self-publishing a book of poetry is daunting. How are your novels doing? Figure your poetry book will not do as well as your worse novel. How many books of poetry have you purchased, that were written by a new, self-published poet, in the last year? If you want the satisfaction of seeing your poetry in print, and you have the extra money, then go for it. A bazillion people have done that. But since you already have books in print I suspect that would not be as big a deal for you as it would be for someone without a published book. Can anyone read your poetry now? Do you have any published on your website? Post some and see what people think.

Honestly Cynique, outside of those of you in Chicago, I'm not sure anyone else really cares. I suspect the female pitcher will still be an inspiration to girls everywhere, regardless of what happens. The real problem is that youth sports has gone too way far. Why do a bunch of children need to travel all over the county and ultimately play teams from around the world? The competition, is what drives teams and players to cheat at every level. Players will lie about their ages, where they live, take steroids, and do anything to win--all for our entertainment. Playing at the local level is fine, the extra time saved could be put to much better use. But as long as sports is a major industry, cheating will persist. People will just become better at it, while the increasingly jaded public cares less about it. I actually wish our professional team players had to come from the communities they were from as well. That would be interesting, wouldn't it? Maybe the NY would have a winning team? Lebron would have never left Cleveland. But then again, the south would dominate every sport, since all they teach Black boys to do, in the south, is play football or basketball.

My most recently completed goal, that I can think of, was the redesign of the Power List website, but that happened in December -- close enough. No, I'm not really speaking to people new to the work force, most those trying to get into the work force. I am working to form a group, but the purpose is to figure out how to make it in this new economy. I'm also in the running to join an existing board in the publishing arena, I should have found out if I've been selected by now... Bringing another idea to life in August would be great. I don't know what it could be yet, but August is far enough away that I could come up with something and execute it by then. You are right, I do feel like I'm moving too slowly. But that could be that time seems to be moving so rapidly perhaps because I'm so busy and doing several things at once.

Gimme a sec to think about this and get back to you Del -- thanks again for your time Bruh.

Being and male chauvinist or womanizer, does not come close to Bevel doing one of the most repugnant things an man can do--rape their own child. Worse still (Harry, breathe deeply now), Rev Bevel is also accused of murdering his daughters. At least that is what I'm getting on social media (though a quick search does not turn up anything). Today, despite the misogyny level against Black women in popular media, Black women dominate Black culture: They are the most educated and head the majority of our families. Boys will be boys, but we need to be men--whatever that means in 2015 America....

Check out the Coretta Scott King award winning books for 2015