The Movie Game

My people, my people.

I know it’s been a minute, but don’t worry, I haven’t just been layin’ on my fat ass. I been grindin’.  We finally got the investor packages put together for the 4 fuckin’ scripts that I managed to write in ‘08 (might be another one if I can get it finished before the end of the month.) So please forgive the absence. I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last posted.

As most of you know, my new book Sinderella came out in November and I went on a bit of a marketing flurry to try and make a few dollars on it and then next thing I knew the movie stuff started to get legs, then I looked up and the month had blown by me!

So I figured I’d take the time to get y’all updated on what’s goin’ on my hectic little world. I believe that these times are much like the incredible times of the great depression. They say that during that time a lot of people became filthy rich and other people were jumping out of windows to their deaths. Well, everybody knows it’s a rare day that a nigga just jumps out of a window so suffice it to say that I chose the other option. I think that opportunity is finally meeting preparation and the magic dance has begun. We’ve been busting our asses trying to get these investor packages done so that we could finally start to solicit funds to get the films made. And finally we’ve arrived and now the meetings are lining up.

Realistically you can’t step to a millionaire asking for money and not have your shit together. At least that’s the way I see it. Many of these folks have actually worked hard for their wealth and don’t have any intention of going broke. So I can understand why they don’t wanna sit down with some fake ass niggas who ain’t got they shit together. So we worked and worked and waited and worked and waited and worked until we had polished the scripts and gotten the legal and investor shit to the point where we had a very strong package worthy of any prospective investor’s attention.

“Build it, and they will come.” – Field of Dreams, 1989

So that’s what we did. We’ve built the production company and we’ve got strong content that can blow away any urban themed films out there. The company is called Cold Blooded Productions and in the next 24 months we will be all over the world — including Nollywood (Nigerian Film) and Bollywood (Indian film). I will continue to post at least weekly, but daily just ain’t gonna be realistic any more. I love y’all, but the movie game is calling.

So please buy the book if you haven’t already and support a brutha’s hustle. Cuz these damn xmas presents are killin’ me!

Holla at a playa.

-k.c.Joseph

My President’s Black, My Lambo’s Blue…

If you haven’t done it already. Bust out what’s destined to now be one of the biggest selling hip-hop albums of all time simply because of the prophetic nature of it. You can call it what you want, but I don’t believe in coincidences. I’m smarter than that. (Look to nature and the stars). Young Jeezy called the election a month ago and had the balls to make track #18 (the last on the album) a dedication to the new Black President of the United States. Oh, and I know I mentioned this about a hundred posts ago, but the fuckin’ album is the hottest shit on the streets in Atlanta. Your boy got lucky. He hit a lick. I don’t usually do commercials for other niggas, but uhh…. buy the Recession. You won’t regret it.

What kills me though are the little things in the song that you only catch after listening to it 100 fuckin’ times. Jeezy tells the haters that Obama has a defacto security unit that consists of every nigga in every hood around the country with a burnout cell phone and a 40 caliber weapon. I don’t think George could make that claim. Young says: “It’s a hands-off policy, You touch him…. We ride!” So poignant. I fuckin’ love it! Cuz it’s true. And I’ll tell you how I know. I was riding in to work a few weeks back and saw a poster in the window of a black barbershop of Barack getting his hair cut by a brotha in a barbershop with regular niggas in the hood. Now, only somebody who’s had the experience of the black barbershop understands what that means. It means that he’s one of us. It means that he was raised without a daddy, he smokes Newports (don’t trip, he quittin’), and he shoots hoop, used to smoke weed (whatever), and gets his hair cut up the street just like we do. He probably tries hard not to look at a fat ass walking by when he’s in the car with Michelle. He probably tries not to cuss around the girls. He ain’t always had paper. The nigga worked his way up. He’s a real dude. The barbershop poster says it all. He’s in with the people.  And when you’re in good with the people you’re straight. Cuz if some neo-nazi fools did decide to try and run up, he’s the first president ever who could just pack his family up and go to the hood in DC (one of the nastiest in the country) and hide out til we handled the fools. He got options!

I waxed philosophical in a conversation with a friend yesterday. We talked about the psychological impact that having a brown person as the CEO of the most powerful country has on the world. This is a huge moment. Bigger I think, than the Illuminati and the purveyors of the New World Order might think. This nigga just might be the X factor we’ve been looking for. He’s gonna have the kids dreaming different dreams now. And every race hater in the country is terrified. Imagine what this does for all the in-the-closet white girls who’ve been resisting the urge to go chocolate. Uh oh! Don’t be surprised if the interracial love parade comes to a theater near you soon!  Strom Thurmond must be spinnin’ in his grave right now!  Poor bastard. See, they understand that the recessive white gene is consistently overtaken by the darker gene. Brown and white equals beige. Beige and brown equals brown. Game over. Obie represents that shit to a T every time he marches those little black girls across the stage. They both got a white grandmama, but you’d never know it. That scares the shit out of some people.

Tough shit.

This election has done nothing if not activated me to be more involved in determining the direction of the world in which my kids are now growing up. Who the fuck else is responsible for that? Should I wait on your lazy ass to do something? I’d be a fool wouldn’t I? Well, don’t expect Barack to do it all either. If anything we should realize that if we want this fucked up country to be better then we have to make it so. Otherwise, we need to shut the fuck up and just watch TV and pray.

Let’s do this shit!

-kcJoseph.

I Would Not Wanna Be President

(On the iPhone as I write: Smith & Mudd – Shulme)

Alright. I voted this morning in my extremely McCain/Palin slanted town. There were ‘Vote Republican’ signs posted all over the damn place. And there was only one other black dude in line. But hell, I chose to live in the styx so I have no one to blame but myself. Frankly, however, I’ve not had a single issue living out in the country accept for a run-in with a pair of rednecks in a Dodge Ram 3500 with a lift kit and some monster mud tires who tried to run me off the road one night. I’ve never been closer to prison than that enchanted evening. But I digress.

I hate how jaded I’ve become. I don’t believe in the power of the president any more.  I’ve become a doom and gloomer to an extent. And I don’t like it. I’ve been listening to a bunch of new world order propaganda lately and I must admit it’s really convincing. It’s even harder when you’re black and you know the history and power of institutionalized evil. Here’s where I’m going:

If we look at the impact that George Beelzebub Bush has had on the country and the world in general we know that as stupid as that sonuvabitch is that he didn’t flush us down the toilet alone.  He had neither the brains nor the balls for that.  Instead, he had a team of advisers and a cabinet and a bunch of people with agendas like the Project For the New American Century all pushing and prodding him to sign this and veto that. We all know that one dude ain’t managing all this shit. But even once Cheney hired Rumsfeld and Rice and the other dolts who flushed my fuckin’ future social security checks down the toilet I still believe in the Unseen Hand.

I still believe in all that Illuminati shit and the Trilateral commission shit, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the IMF/World Bank shit and all that Rockefeller shit that basically says that 12 families rule the whole fuckin’ world. Vote all you want dammit! But at the end of the day, who really gives a shit? The REAL powers that be are still the puppetmasters of your great mulatto messiah. I wonder if he believes it. I wonder if Obie knows he’s got to go head up with the puppetmaster. Or maybe he believes that that constitution he studied has some magic powers. Maybe he thinks he can restore all that ‘we the people’ bullshit that those white dudes made up back in the day. The irony of 1/8th of a man (or is he 1/4 of a man cuz he’s half white? not sure… but anyway) the idea of the mulatto prez restoring to power the constitution of a country that never considered his black half when they wrote it is the ultimate irony. I gotta break out of my doomsday rut.

Everybody’s gonna wanna celebrate tomorrow. But I think I may have to do a little yoga and have a glass of wine and just reflect.  Y’all pray for me. But more importantly, pray for homeboy. And if they steal the election, pray the niggas don’t burn down your rental properties. Now u niggas see why I moved to the burbs dontcha???

Holla at a playa.

-kcJoseph.

Black Socialists Unite?

With all this GOP talk about Obama being a socialist I decided I needed to find out just what the hell socialism really is and then share it with the streets. The study of government never really resonated with me as a youth. It wasn’t until I became grown and actually started to see the real need for local, state and national leadership that I even started giving a damn about the philosophies by which countries choose to govern themselves.

One thing I learned through the years about language is that it’s a tool that elucidates or conceals by design. Thus we have phrases like “talking down to someone…, talking over somebody’s head, straight talk, talkin’ out the side of your mouth, etc. But language is also used to facilitate easier communication, thus the birth of acronyms, scientific language, computer code and cryptology. I believe however that when it comes to all-impacting legislation and decisions that impact the masses it’s critical to insure that those who have not benefited from higher education are still able to understand the movement of the world around them. Thus today’s conversation on socialism.

Definition:

Socialism is a set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods and creation of an egalitarian society.

Okay. But what the fuck does that shit mean? First of all they’re saying that people are to be organized socially based on economic theories that advocate state or collective ownership of how stuff is produced and distributed in the country. So in socialist countries you have government owned every damn thing. Land, healthcare, media, gas stations, grocery stores, oil refineries, water plants, etc. And if I understand it correctly, everybody buys shit from the government and then the government takes that money and distributes it amongst all the people equally so that there are no rich and there are no poor, thus creating an ‘egalitarian’ society.

Sweden, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, China, Cuba, Laos & Vietnam are socialist countries as evidenced by their substantially state run economies, and numerous government social programs.

Now this is where it gets sticky.

If you’re broke, socialism don’t sound too bad. But if you’re rich it sounds like you wanna get as far away from that shit as you possibly can. Why? because don’t no rich people want you takin’ their hard earned or stolen riches from them and ‘re-distributing’ it to the poor. Fuck them. I got mine nigga. Get yours. But if your great grandparents were slaves to the great grandparents of the people who rule your country then you might feel like those folks have an unfair advantage and thus the wealth of the country DOES need to be re-distributed in order to truly level the playing field. You can see how this might piss off the ballers, especially those who are descendants of slaves but who’ve climbed the capitalist ladder to success. (Some by selling crack until they could open their first car wash, dry cleaners or record label, but I digress.) So let’s get back to the creation of an ‘egalitarian’ society.

Most capitalists that I’ve come across feel like socialism is as ugly as cancer and that it completely does away with the ‘natural’ order of things in society. They argue that the market should be allowed to naturally run its course and that if allowed to do so jobs are created by the most successful and the opportunity to thrive and grow into a successful member of society will be afforded to the working class as well. But some folks don’t agree. Some folks argue that the government bailing out companies like Ford, GM, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Citigroup, and others is socialist in nature and that if they were truly capitalists they’d let the market just ‘play out’, watch those companies die and let the chips fall where they may.

But then there are others who’ve implemented what I find to be a very interesting fusion of capitalism and socialism called Democratic Socialism. See, I do believe that we are our brother’s keeper. I do believe that we have a responsibility to look out for each other. Especially if we’re going to call ourselves good Christians and Muslims and Buddhists etc. I do think that the uber rich have a responsibility to the less fortunate. Exactly what that responsibility is I haven’t decided. Maybe a tax that’s designed to truly level the playing field.  Or maybe some kind of mandatory community service requirement. I don’t know. But as long as we live in a society that rewards men for running the fastest 40 yard dash with millions of dollars and teachers with 30 grand a year; while we have the expectation that our little angels should grow up to be millionaire geniuses we’ll never get this country whipped into shape. This is the home of the fat and lazy. What’s being rich if you don’t have a nice gut? Meanwhile the teacher eats spam and saltine sandwiches so she can put gas in her ‘98 Celica. And all day long she daydreams about being the next Latifah while your kid starves to death of education-scurvy. I need some sun.

Nobody wants to make a sacrifice. When the rich say fuck the poor you have revolution and potential genocide. It’s in our best interest to come up with our own brand of government. I don’t give a fuck what you call it. But it needs to provide solutions to the problems that are inherent in a slave-based economy who’s industrial days are behind it. The fucked up part occurs when the rich begin to pull out of this country and move their monies to where more money can be made. That’s when the bottom really falls out. Countries like Germany, France, Canada and Sweden have made inroads into the development of hybrid governments that attempt to leverage the best of both worlds, free-market capitalism and socialism. People need each other’s help. No man is an island. But the more money we have the harder it can be to see that truth. That’s because money can buy you the relationships you need to succeed. But when you’re broke you just wanna cop a pre-paid cell phone.

Holla at a playa.

-kcJoseph

Spongebob Made Me Do It.

My three year old is a video game crackhead. You can take away his food, clothing, bed, etc without issue. But as soon as his Diego or Spongebob video games are threatened he transforms. It’s the only form of punishment that really gets through. Take away his internet access. He straightens up. Want him to clean up? Press pause on the DVR. It’s amazing the power the medium has. It informs, deceives, warns, teaches, and exposes. But who’s in control of it???

I saw a story recently on Fox news about an Iraqi software developer who is getting good funding now to develop console games for Arab kids. They got sick of killing their own people in all the video games imported from the U.S.. I know this may sound like a non-story to you initially, but what you may not know is that the U.S. miliary uses video games now for almost all of their combat simulation training. There are those who argue that the games that are developed for the western markets tend to use Middle Eastern type characters as the terrorists and bad guys in games like Call of Duty, SOCOM Navy Seals, Metal Gear Solid and the Rainbow Six Vegas series. Now, unless you’re a gamer and I’ve now outted myself so to hell with it, but unless you’re a gamer you may still not see the significance of all this. Video games are the future of learning. Full immersion, virtual reality is the most powerful learning tool available to us in the mass market today. Period. If you can’t see it then it’s gonna really hurt when it hits you. I remember a blog some years ago that said pointedly that the Grand Theft Auto Series was little more than a bonafide crime simulator for the development of terrorists. Maybe a little extreme, but we get the point.

The Arab intelligentia understands that kids all over America are being brainwashed as we speak as they repel from helicopters through glass ceilings, into rooms filled with middle eastern terrorists with blazing automatic rifles in hand. These kids make head shots. They don’t fuck around. It saves ammo. I love this article from slate.com:

The connection between violent games and real violence is also fairly intuitive. In playing the games, kids are likely to become desensitized to gory images, which could make them less disturbing and perhaps easier to deal with in real life. The games may also encourage kids (and adults) to rehearse aggressive solutions to conflict, meaning that these thought processes may become more available to them when real-life conflicts arise, Anderson says. Video games also offer immediate feedback and constant small rewards—in the form of points, or access to new levels or weapons. And they tend to tailor tasks to a player’s skill level, starting easy and getting harder. That makes them “phenomenal teachers,” says Anderson, though “what they teach very much depends on content.”

Look, I ain’t gonna bullshit you. I love first person shooters! I love puttin’ a bullet in a muffukka’s head from a kilometer away. I love sneakin’ up on a nigga and chokin’ him out and then hiding the body! Especially after a long day at work. “I’ll be back honey. I gotta go kill some niggas.” I know it sounds terrible, but it beats the hell out of a stress ball. And for all you pro-black folks, don’t worry, I’m really shooting virtual Arabs in Rainbow Six Vegas or Troglodytes in Halo 3. Nobody actually gets hurt. Unless of course they do.

They say the Columbine kids were big into the game DOOM. I liked it back in the day, but I never shot nobody after playing. They said the Virginia Tech dude liked to play Counter-Strike (a first person shooter). I never played it, but it must be quite a doozy. Lee Boyd Malvo, the Washington DC shooter was said to have played Halo before his sniper attacks about town. Been playing that bitch online for years now and as much as I’ve wanted to shoot a few folks in traffic I still haven’t been able to go there. Very interesting.

I’m from the old school on this one. Parents, raise your kids. It’s so easy to let that fuckin’ TV raise your kids for you. And you wonder why you have a little McToyzR-Spongebob walking around your fuckin’ house like a zombie who’s 5 years old and still shittin’ on himself in front of the flat screen TV while he drools all over the controller. Alot of that shit is not for kids. And the more we allow our kids to be desensitized and brainwashed by these games the more trouble we’re gonna be in. I don’t have a game in my collection besides FIFA soccer that my son can even WATCH me play. I don’t even turn that bitch on til his ass in bed. The games look too real. They’re too immersive. It’s nothing to lose 4 quick hours to a pastime that will provide no real-world benefit to your life. It won’t put a dollar in your pocket EVER. And  honestly, I haven’t met a PS3 or 360 owner yet who gives a hot damn about the educational possibilities of the platform. Most of the people I know who game just wanna see somebody’s head explode at the other end of their gun without actually having to deal with Judge Mathis afterward. I’m concerned though that now that the Arabs are making games with George Bush and Hulk Hogan as the enemies, they might not like us any more. But maybe having your entire family killed by a cluster bomb in the middle of the night because your country has imaginary chemical weapons might be more effective. All I know is, they’re training the kids now folks with video games. It might be time to bring the troops home and stop the export of PS2’s to Baghdad.

Holla at a playa.

kcJoseph

 

 

You owe me.

You niggas owe me.

That’s right.

I had a revelation tonight as I drove home. You niggas owe me. I go out on a limb to let you know just what the fuck is going on in my warped ass world. I insure that you’re just 2 degrees of separation from your main nigga’s most potent moments. It’s critical to me that you feel the blood pulse through my veins as the drama unfolds; yet you ungrateful muthafukkas treat me like this.

That’s right. It’s time we came out and cleared this bullshit.

Let’s set the record straight. I work for YOU. My job is to insure that your eyes are opened, your pineal gland throbs, your blood vessels are engorged and your synapses are expanded. My job is to get you off in a way that you can’t have me arrested for. Everything I used to do and everything I used to be is neither here nor there when I blog.  I am the entity that brought to you the super wonder bytch: Sinderella. She is today’s mega-hustler bitch who won’t take no for an answer cuz the kids don’t give a fuck about your problems. They just know they hungry. 

Sinderella.

She walked into your life and slapped you in the face at your mama’s barbeque. Fuck your baptist upbringing! Sinderella has walked in your shoes. She drank from your well. She knows your mama’s potato salad. She’s unsatisifed with what you have to offer. Give me more she says. And I oblige.

There’s nothing wrong with being a bartender in a world of section-8, welfare niggas. The thirst is hard to quench. 

Get your money baby. Do you.

I just want my kids to be free. I just want peace for a minute. Is that too much to ask?

But the reality is: If they want me as an enemy then they can have me as such. But, for the record: That ain’t in their best interest. I can’t be any more politically correct than that.

Holla at a playa.

-kcJoseph.

Slangin’ & Bangin’

I did a book club expo today. It was my first one since the books came in. Very interesting indeed. I really appreciate the folks at Reading Is Essential Book Club in Atlanta for putting the event together. It was nicely done but there wasn’t much buyer traffic. C’est la vie. It was a fine networking opportunity and I enjoyed the environment.

As a part of the program each author had to give a little synopsis of their work and share with the audience. I was probably the 3rd to last person called. All of the authors were African American. We were all shades of the rainbow, from my yellow ass to the ace of spades. And as it seems to go in our community there was a very heavy Christian influence at our gathering. It appeared that many of the self-published authors had written books of personal triumph through the grace of the Lord or self-improvement and motivational work. One man and his wife had even written a novel about how they met and fell in love at the workplace. Hey, I ain’t mad at ‘em.

So when I got called to the microphone I sauntered up with my book and paused a moment and then I shared. I told the crowd of about 50 that my book was called Sinderella: Tales of a Southside Stripper and that it chronicled the life of a young Atlanta woman as she traversed the manic world of the stripclub dancer. But before I got too deep into the whole soliloquy I joked with the crowd about what it was like to follow up six Christian authors with some of the hottest urban fiction on the market today! Fortunately, they all seemed to have a sense of humor. I advised them that if they read Zane, or Noire, or Dickey, or Nikki Turner, that they’d likely love my stuff and probably blow through the book in a night. (the voracious ones!) I then read the excerpt from the back of the book and made my way back to my table.

There was spoken word and poetry reading and there were wonderful vendors of all sorts of crafts and foodstuffs. But there were only about 10 people there from book clubs who’d come to buy books. Fortunately for me the few book club members who did show up weren’t shy about their interest in the spicy stripper lives of Sinderella and her best friend Faithful. It didn’t look like many other authors sold many books.  I hope I’m wrong in that observation, but it was one of my customers who brought it to my attention. This takes me back to professional writer’s school 101: Before you write, choose your market. And so I did. I chose 18 to 35 year old black females. Everybody else is gravy. I built it and they came. Not yet in droves, but they came. Sex still sells.

At the end of the day though, I just want the folks who bought it to read the book and love it. And recommend it to their book clubs which as every author knows means sales.

Long live the black book club baby! Holla at a playa.

-kc Joseph

I Feel Bad for Dude

(On the iPhone as I write: Young Jeezy – The Recession. THE WHOLE DAMN CD IS HOTTTT!!!)

As I sat and watched McCain and Obama last night on the CNN split screen it dawned on me how significantly mobility issues affect the personalities and lifestyles of the individuals who suffer from them. McCain is quite obviously afflicted with mobility issues. He can’t raise his hand above his waist. He appears to not be able to turn his head effectively either. He looks to me like his face hurts when he smiles. His smile tends to look more like a grimace. 

I’m a very empathetic person (See Octavia Butler on extreme telepathic empathy… gotta love sci-fi!). I avoid being around people who are in pain because I physically begin to hurt when I’m around them. It’s like I take on their pain. And when I watched McCain on the split screen last night I could feel it. I wonder if he suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. I wonder if he’s had any joint replacement surgeries.

I’m an avid supporter of alternative therapies. I’m an avid proponent of preventive health maintenance. McCain should holla at my accupuncturist. (Shouts out to Dr. Lee!) I believe that if you’re unable to move efficiently (like our economy) then you begin to stagnate and will eventually die. It is clear to me that McCain is in the declination cycle of his life. He is withering. He looks to be dying before our very eyes on television. He reminds me of trees in autumn as they lose their leaves and their moisture and become dry and brittle. Maybe he should get better makeup people. He should talk to Oprah’s folks. She’s got the best team in the business, but they’re probably not cheap.

I hurt when I watch him try to turn or when he makes that fake smile or extends that lame arm in feigned appreciation for Obama’s presence. He reminds me of the poor sap that worked for 40 years at the steel mill and then retired.  Then 2 months into his retirement he doesn’t wake up on Thursday morning. I get the sneaky suspicion that this campaign has done a number on John. He looks haggard. He looks beaten, and I’m hoping that 2 months after November 4th his trophy wife doesn’t find herself widowed.

I saw it in his eyes last night. Empathically I felt his fear. And then another epiphany. John McCain’s fear is the same fear that many white Americans have: It’s the fear of extinction. The numbers are out. By 2050 brown people will be the majority here. I think that’s a lie though. I think brown people already ARE the majority. I’ve never been comfortable with census numbers cuz niggas don’t answer their doors when white people knock. Can you blame ‘em? See, Obama represents the browning of our blessed white ass America. He is what happens when race mixing is allowed to go un-checked in this country. I can hear the race haters now…

Barack Obama represents the REAL New American Century. And I don’t think we’re gonna have to wait ’til 2050 to see it. Holla at a playa.

-kc Joseph

Why I Write

A friend of mine stepped to me the other day and said, “Yo cuz, I don’t understand why in the hell you would write a fuckin’ book when you already work two fuckin’ jobs! and got two little kids.” And I said, “…well let me ’splain it to yo dumb ass.”

He’s right. I do work two jobs. I’ve got a couple failed businesses under my belt too. I also have a one year old and a 3 year old, and a mortgage, and a car note. And even a few credit card bills that call me daddy too. In other words, I’m just like everybody else out here in this new millenium economy. Yeah, BROKE.  Do regular people even think about how they’re gonna send their kids to college any more? Or do they just kiss that one up to God?

I write movies too though. Not just books. I don’t discriminate. But they’re a little more costly to self-produce so I went with the book first even though I’ve got a couple screenplays that are ready to go into production (IMHO) yesterday.  Hollywood and all mainstream media folks know that regardless of how bad it gets people will still want to fuck, be entertained and get high. So if you ask me, you have to be crazy not to tap into at least one of those income streams unless you’re in one of the staples like fuel or clothing or food.

The staples bore me though. I’m an ideas guy. Somebody else can plant the fuckin’ crops. And on my two jobs uncle scam gets his 30+ percent off the top of my shit. Not like the small business owner or the corporation who get theirs and can invest it or burn it or do whatever the hell they want with it BEFORE they pay taxes. If you have a job you have no fuckin’ say so. The whole world (literate, world anyway) knows that whoever has the money has control. They take control before you ever have a chance to. And I don’t like that.

So I write. I write because if I sell somebody a book on the street out of the trunk of my car Amazon doesn’t get their 55% of my shit. I get that money. I’m $10 bucks closer to sending one of the rugrats to college. Yeah, I said 55%! Can you believe that shit? You wanna sell through us bitch? Give us 55% and shut the fuck up! LOL I don’t encourage anybody to buy my shit on Amazon unless of course they don’t trust my website. In those cases my daddy’s saying that some money is better than NO money is spot on.

So I write. And I sell. And I pray that whoever the fuck gets into office next month can put together a team of folks who will truly work at fixing this fucked up system. Then maybe I can hustle full time and make Paulson money. My fingers are crossed, but honestly, I ain’t expecting no miracles.

-kc Joseph.

At Long Last…

It took me a while, but it’s finally here. And after all this time the first book I put out turns out to be not an expose on the state of U.S. or world affairs, or even a coming of age story for young black males. Instead I put out Sinderella: Tales of a Southside Stripper. The adult story of a young black woman living in Atlanta hustling her body on-stage and off in order to feed her kids. Some don’t believe her story is one worth telling. But one thing I’ve learned in my years is that even in the most mundane lies the deeply spiritual.

Most of you know that I fell in love with hip-hop music when I was 12 years old growing up in Inglewood California. Five Minutes of Funk. Egyptian Lover. Buffalo Gals. Linoleum in the driveway trying to learn to windmill. Some of you go back that far.

Too Short was awarded one of the VH-1 hip hop legend awards the other night. I remember hearing a Too Short record for the first time in college when I was about 18 up in the Bay. I couldn’t believe that this dude wrote a lyric that went: “…bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, make me rich….” My Judeo-Christian training railed against the thought of it. But the sinner in me wanted to hear more. “…I knew this girl named Belinda, my homeboys called her Belinda the blenda…” He was making money hand over fist. Could it possibly have been true? “Build it and they will come…” Somebody once said.

A pet rock? Yep. A Chia Pet bruh? Again the answer is yes.

Writing a book is an amazing journey. It’s like walking through the universe and having someone magically lift the veils off of scenes and allowing you to take notes on them as you stitch them together in time. Of course there are many formulae for writing prose. But following the imagination as it builds brick upon brick from the seedling idea to a mansion of pages called a novel is a fantastic voyage to say the least.

The girl on the train said she didn’t read fiction when I asked, but I stuck the book in her hands anyway.  “This is my new book.” I said. “Good stuff.” I said. “I bet.” She said sarcastically as she read the title. Then she flipped it over and said, “You wrote this?” I nodded my head.

I ask you as I asked her, “Is the stripper’s story not worth telling?” Is she somehow less worthy of the ink and paper than the cab driver or the mercenary? Or does her life teach lessons too? Is she more than just skin and spandex and baby oil? Does she have a brain? A heart? A conscience? I wonder what Moms for Sarah Palin would say?  Maybe a resounding, celebratory YES. The lady I saw said how much she admired that Palin had knowlingly had the down syndrome baby, and embraced her daughter’s unwed pregnancy. They talked about how much they related to Sarah. She looks like them, she thinks the way they think. The woman interviewed said she just felt like she could invite Sarah over for snacks and talk.

We all make choices in life and those choices dictate the course of our lives. The choices open up new pathways which lead to yet more choices. But regardless of our chosen paths we must continue to learn or wallow in our ignorance until bloodied and sore the lightbulb finally goes on. So many of us are pain-learners. We don’t touch the stove any more when we see the orange flame because the pain lingers on in our long term memories. LaShonda Booker often wishes she could turn back the hands of time and make different choices, choices that might have brought her to a different right-now. Maybe she wouldn’t have a stage name. She could just be LaShonda and wouldn’t have to be Sin. But wishing don’t cook the food. Especially in an economy like this one. Oh yeah, don’t forget… Christmas on the way…

 

p.s. If you haven’t heard the Richard Trumka speech at the AFL-CIO rally then you haven’t heard the most moving speech given by a white man on race in a good long time! Enjoy!

-kc