Here are some lovely Christmas images to peruse. I know I've been MIA but I'll be going full steam ahead come 2022. Enjoy the pics. I've included secular and religious images to satisfy all tastes.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Yes. I've ben away. I've been busy entering writing contest and polishing up old manuscripts but I am back!
MAXWELL. Or as I like to call him CHOCOLATE DADDY.
GERALD MAXWELL RIVERA, one of my absolute favorite singers was honored on Sunday night at the BET SOUL TRAIN AWARDS. I have loved every one of his albums since his debut back in 1996 with URBAN HANG SUITE.
He brought the house to its knees with his voice, his class, his style and with his showmanship.
I am glad for him also because just like Anita baker he hung in there and noe owns ALL his MASTERS and publishing. That is where the real money is. Yeah. You can sing and tour and get paid a percentage of a penny for your streaming songs BUT now since he is free of his 30 year contractual obligation, he now gets ALL the money every timr any one of his songs is streamed.
WONDERFUL!
Many singers don't last long enough to reach the point to be able to get all their rights back. (I kinda doubt msny of these mumble rappers will last long enough to reach this goal)
Congratulations, Maxwell! (Plus, he has new music out!) Click the limk below to see his performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5DWe7EWh1Y
Well, after several months without any reads on Amazon's new KINDLE VELLA platform, my thriller SHADE is now on the RADISH platform. Amazon made ZERO EFFORT to promote KINDLE VELLA and, hence its stories. The experience was a complete and total bust. I guess monies for promotion of its latest venture went into sending Jeffy Bezos into space. I mean the stratosphere. A side note here: Jeffy, dear, you and any of that "crew" you had on that rudely shaped Blue Origin ship were PASSENGERS at best. Not astronauts. But I digress. Feels good though.
As for RADISH, I was lucky I was picked. Admittance to RADISH as a writer is by invitation only. Wow! I made the cut.
RADISH is a platform for serialized fiction. It offers fiction designed to be read on one's phone, in episodes. The 1st 3 episodes of any story are free. Then if one wants to continue reading a story, one uses coins (RADISH CURRENCY) that can be purchased through the site. I ACTUALLY GOT SOME READS!
So, if you are interested, download the RADISH app from the Google play store and start reading the free episodes of SHADE and decide for yourself if it's something you'd cough up coins to follow. See ya over there.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/01/bruces-beach-returned-100-years-california
I do hope Willa and Charles are laughing and dancing!
The family of the original couple who owned Bruce's Beach is getting it back! And me, being me would tell the city toGET OFF MY LAWN!
Sorry, vacationers, but if I let you stay...You gots to pay. You can thank the city for that. Send them the bill. it might be a while before the city replies though. Ask the descendants of the Bruces.
Willa and Charles Brube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIYk
No, I did not forget.
Do you remember the 21st night of September? I do.
DANCE!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Hobson
Well, today marks the 16th anniversary of when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. Sadly, those states are looking to get an encore performance today. New Orleans still hasn't recovered fully and is a smaller city than it used to be. Many Black residents (who lived in the lower wards that got hit the hardest) never came back to the city. They rebuilt their lives wherever they were shipped out to. If Ida hits the lower wards again, will the there Black folks survive? We witnessed how unconcerned (as my grandma would have said) the U. S. gov't and the state gov'ts were about certain people's safety. I'd say "Take care, people" but really what good would that do? I am truly heartsick over this.
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/hurricane-ida-updates-08-29-21/index.html
https://www.foxnews.com/us/hurricane-ida-category-4-katrina-anniversary
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/29/weather/hurricane-ida-sunday/index.html
My serialized story for Kindle Vella is LIVE today.
Read the 1st three episodes for FREE. Purchase tokens to access the next three and to continue on from there WEEKLY if you so choose.
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/product/B098M6N8GL
Mel Reynolds has been psyched for months for her 2 weeks of time-off from her combination lab tech/assistant supervisor position. She's looking forward to languishing in the lavish Tampa condo of the wealthy parents of her old prep school bestie of 15 years, Callie Hobbs. The two young women have not seen each other for a few months but stay in constant contact by phone and text every day. Little does Mel know that this vacation will be far from relaxing. Her friend Callie, ever the dilettante, will make the announcement that she has quit yet another cushy dream job to build a platform as a "social media influencer. " Then out of the blue, Cash, who is Callie's older brother, a hotshot salesman at Nouvelle, a major cosmetics company, and also Mel's old college crush, will show up to begin his job as second-in-command at the sales division of Nouvelle's Tampa branch. He's been promoted and transferred to work his star magic on that branch's lagging sales. Oddly, his arrival coincides with the onset of women going missing in the city, one being Mel's co-worker. Nope. Vacation will not be a heavenly time for Ms. Reynolds this year and just might feel like it is a season in Hell instead.
Look. I am not pissing on the new federal holiday JUNETEENTH. It's nice that it's being recognized. It's not new. Well, maybe to White Americans. Yes, the late comers. We, Black Americans, had been recognizing this holiday for YEARS!
It's also so much more complicated than it's been presented.
The EMANCIPATION PROCLAIMATION had been announced by Lincoln in January 1863. It freed the enslaved in Confederate held states. BUT slave-holders who had more or less said, "Screw this ish!" simply MOVED their "property" to sympathetic territories. They played the ultimate shell game as they were not gonna give up their free labor. SOOOOO, it took TWO FRIGGIN' YEARS (1865) for the message to reach the hinterlands of Texas where folks had stashed their "property."
What a gangsta move.
Even though slaves were forbidden to read or write, how did Massah and Missy keep this under wraps in the Big Houses? Not a one of them discussed this monumental revelation at the dinner table? Not a one discussed this monumental revelation while sipping their beverages on the veranda? Slaves weren't deaf. This had to be a massive cover-up to keep their "property" working for as long as possible. They knew they were in a safe space. Even the Union Army wouldn't enforce the 2-year-old ruling.
And please don't give General Gordon Granger credit for "freeing" the enslaved in Texas. Boyfriend didn't find out the news on the morning of June 19th and then ride out to proclaim it. He had had the info for TWO YEARS ALSO; apparently felt sympathy for the plantation owners. His delay in bringing the truth made it possible for them to get at least 2 to 4 more plantings and harvestings out of the slaves and to collect the moolah from them. He finally had to write the order when The United States Army Color Troops (all Black men and women) compelled him to.
Oh, it's so much more to this. Okay. Thanks, Congress and President Biden for the federally recognized holiday but so much more is needed and is being sat on by the GOVERNMENT..
With the establishment of this federal holiday, understand that this a cash cow for mainstream America not an awakening. I cringe at the thought of Macy's or Walmart or Amazon pitching their Juneteenth sales. UGH!
Oh well.
Read the above referenced article, It embodies my thoughts totally.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna13924064
https://roadsidethoughts.com/md/santo-domingo-xx-wicomico-profile.htm
San Domingo is a small community in Wicomico County Maryland initially settled by ex-enslaved in the early 19th century. It sits between Mardela Springs and Sharptown, about 50 miles southeast of Annapolis. It is an ageing place and with an ageing population comes the lost of culture. And this settlement is full of culture. Oral histories and documentation are required. Maryland was my maternal grandmother's stomping ground. My father's people (Gullah) are from the islands off the coasts of the Carolinas. So my heart is in both places.
It is sad as the diminishing Gullah culture in the Low Country of America. Both the people of San Domingo and of the Low Country are valuable to African-American culture. If this little Maryland community is lost, the land will go to the investors like the precious land of Hilton Head. I hope San Domingo can save itself because if it is waiting on the U. S. gov't to help...Forget it!
Anyhoo, read the accompanying articles. They are a wealth of info.
https://abc7.com/bruces-beach-manhattan-property-seized-from-black-family-1924/10502275/
Hi! This post will probably make no sense but the last 12 months haven't either. Permit me my ramblings. It's been tiring.
No COVID-19 didn't get me nor have I gotten "the shot." I'm not eligible yet. I'm still debating. I mean do I put my trust in a gov't that suddenly is verklempt about the health of its country's Black citizens? Pardon me while I side-eye the land that has never gotten worked up about "saving" us from disease or worse. If anything, it took pride in initiating disease in us for the sake o medical progress. We have been used as guinea pigs for new treatments, procedures and medications WITHOUT our knowledge to better the lives of the dominant society.
Talk about non-consensual.
In this new reality of lockdown/quarantine (whatever you wanna call it), due to COVID-19, people have become fierce "streaming addicts." Streaming services viewership has gone through the roof. Many die-hard romance readers discovered BRIDGERTON on Netflix. And word sped through Romancelandia, first, that the cast was gonna be DIVERSE (How I loathe that word). And the second biggest concern with those familiar with the romance books the series is based on was how the project was going to handle the rape scene in one of the books in the author's series about the Bridgerton family. The rape scene. Oh the virtual hand-wringing that ensued about the book "The Duke and I"s infamous "rape scene." I must be out of the romance world's loop because I'd never heard of it. And after I had, I didn't care. Seems the concern was how it was going to be interpreted. In the book, the heroine, Daphne seduces her duke of a husband, Simon, after finding out from her maid, ex-governess, some other more sexually experienced broad, that to become preggers (something Daphne wants badly), the man has to "complete" the act of intercourse inside the woman. Apparently, in the book, Daphne takes matters into her own hand and gets what she wants forcefully.
When Julia Quinn's Bridgerton books came out in the early to mid 2000s, consent was not the hot button topic it is now in romance writing. In the eyes of SJWs, Daphne is a rapist. O-O-O-kay. So what is Simon? He's no upstanding gentleman either. He straight up lied to his wife because he didn't want kids (there's a reason), and knew he could act any way he wanted because she was an innocent, trusted him, and was madly in love with him. He just took it upon himself to control their sex life. So he's no better on the consent front.
So how did Netflix and Rhimes handle the delicate situation from the book? They let it play out the way it was written by Quinn but provided Daphne with additional lines where she admonishes Simon for his deception. To please the SJWs, Daphne gives Simon a post-coital speech on how he had been depriving her of what she wants most, how he had taken advantage of her inexperience to dupe her into thinking sex was always like the way they had been doing it and that she wasn't pregnant because she was probably barren. Whew!
Now excuse me but I was sick of BOTH of them by the time these scenes rolled around. I. DIDN'T. CARE! .Girlfriend knew the man did NOT WANT CHILDREN but she wed him anyway. He was a stone idiot to think he could keep on playing Mr. Pull Out their entire marriage and she wasn't gonna ask some other married woman were his actions normal. I got zero sympathy for her and him. They both were playing games. How since we had been captives in our abodes for months, this series and the handling of the "rape scene" was big news on the romance blogs. It was talked up so much that romance readers were getting "pre-triggered" about the upcoming scene. And that is where I removed myself from reading about the much-ado-about-nothing issue. People! It's a scene in a fictional work, between 2 grown-ass, fictional people.
Personally, I YAWNED through the parts of BRIDGERTON I did manage to stay awake for. I suppose it was titillating for lots to see a White woman with a Black dude in long, drawn-out sex scenes and it not be a PornHub production. Maybe it was just me but I found Daphne and Simon to be the most boring couple in the show. Anyhoo, another tempest-in-a-teapot was the presence of Black people period in the show. Many could not fathom how there could be Black aristocracy in Regency Era Britain and were pissed at the show's "insertion of diversity for diversity's sake." OY!
Look, folks. black people had been in Britain for quite some time, and not just as servants, by the time the Regency rolled around. Story goes that famed show-runner Shanda Rhimes was on vacay and had brought some beach reads with her. One being the Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn. Seems Rhimes was taken with the books and had a vision for them. Rights were acquired and the backside of actor Regé-Jean Page is a household staple now. My beef? My pet peeve? Why couldn't Shonda Rhimes have picked up a beach read set in the Regency Era with a cast of BLACK characters, written by a BLACK ROMANCE WRITER since she was looking to put a twist on a classic for a property to show run? There are a number of BLACK ROMANCE WRITERS who pen Regencies. All she had to do was Google them while lolling on the sand if she truly wanted to be innovative.
But No. She chose to showcase a White romance writer's work. The original books that the series is based on has NO BLACK CHARACTERS in them. She then changes crap around to fit her vision for Netflix. Shonda. Shonda. Shonda. You could have put a sistah on the map but you chose to big up a non-Black woman who had already made her mark on the romance writing scene. A Regency-writing sistah could have used the boost to her readership and to her bank account. A sistah could have used the shine.
But I digress.
Back to the "virus" and that freshly created government concern for Black Americans' health. I call theater. I call BS. I see carefully orchestrated photo ops of Black people getting "shots in arms." Where was the medical community before Black people started dropping like flies from COVID coupled with serious co-morbidities like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, COPD, asthma, etc. Whatever. Black folks will get the vaccine or not. I know some people who've had bad side effects. I know people who've had COVID-19 who recovered and have no after effects.
So what am I gonna do as my turn approaches? I'll continue to ask questions; educate myself. I'm concerned that "vaccine passports" will become a requirement to move about the country. I'll decide my fate because isn't that what consent is about?
Yes. Yes. It's shameless plug time. Ignore if you are weary from hearing about it.
02/21/1965
56 years ago today (02/21/2021) Malcolm X was assassinated in the Audubon Ballroom in the Washington heights are of Manhattan.
His family has demanded a re-opening of his murder investigation. Deep digging and a death-bed confession from a cop have exploded onto the scene revealing that the FBI and the NYPD conspired to kill Malcolm.
Where will this lead? What will these revelations bring?
Justice I truly hope. But people in Hell want ice water too. And to whom were any of these tidbits news?
ASÈ
Well, it's that month again. I'm four days late in posting some shares.
Today's subject is Stage Coach Mary also known as Shotgun Mary.
https://www.blackcowboys.com/maryfields.htm
There are a few articles on Mary Fields but I love the one I've referenced for this post.
Shotgun Mary was an ex-slave from Tennessee who after the Civil War set out for the Western frontier. Montana to be exact. She found a position first at a mission run by Ursuline nuns. She was hired to haul and prepare all foods to do with maintaining and stocking the mission. Basically, she was what my grandfather would have called, A TOTAL NEGRO. Meaning? The all 'round helper. The one who, no matter what goes on, will get ish done. The title might sound complimentary but it is not. Believe me. If a Black person is ever seen as that by another Black person, it means the person is being taken advantage of. Used up to the brink of exhaustion and not getting compensated fairly for their labor. For most Black freedmen and women, freedom post-early Emancipation was just doing the same work they'd done in slavery for little pay. It was still backbreaking and dehumanizing. Mary being 6 feet tall, tough and robust and not to be messed with, and a toter of 2 six-shooters and a ten gauge shotgun was perfect for the label.
A story which depicts this all is when she was on a supply run for the convent. Wolves attacked her wagon, knocking it over and destroying a lot of her haul. After spending a harrowing night on the prairie fending off the creatures, she somehow righted the wagon, piled the goods that were salvageable into it and made it to the convent. WELL. This is where the "being taken advantage of "part kicks in. The ungrateful nuns boo-hoo'ed about the goods that were lost. They did NOT thank Mary, or ask HOW she was after the encounter. They only cared about the lost stuff and DOCKED HER PAY!
Her stint at the convent ended when she was a part of a shoot-out. Which occurred behind the nunnery. Some ass of a White cow poke who worked at the convent found out that marry being paid 2 bucks more than him a month. One can imagine the colorful way he brought that up. His approach didn't sit well with Mary and after that, as they say, it was on! She wounded the dude and filled the laundry hanging behind the nunnery full of holes. She was fired. The next job was as mail person for that area of Montana. She always carried her weapons and it was said no mail was ever stolen. She'd go through 2 or 3 more jobs before passing at the age of 80 from liver failure.
No nonsense. Feisty. Cigar Smoker. Brawler. Frontierswoman. Daredevil. That was Mary Fields.
By now you all know how I feel about MLK DAY.
His name is MARTIN LUTHER KING. Not MLK. Happy Birthday, sir (Actually, it's the 15th).
The day has been watered down and diluted and hijacked!
That said, hear from the man himself how he'd done a 180 on his original stance and was closer to Malcolm X in his thinking.
This interview with Sander Vanocur was done 11 months before King's murder.
This is the KING I celebrate.
Listen and learn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8
After finally getting the print rights back to KINDRED, AN AMERICAN LOVE STORY (Book One in my "LOVE VANQUISHES ALL historical romance series), I am able to offer a print version of the book. My original publisher still offers the digital version but does not do print for an ebook unless A LOT of ecopies have been sold.
So, after being asked by people who had the ebook, "When will a print version be available?"I took matters into my own hands.
BOOM! Here it is:
Lil, ole me is an unknown. So, if you want it, walk in and order it! BUT if Amazon is the only bookstore you bother with, wait until next week. By then Amazon should have updated its book inventory, and then you can order a print copy. Either way, I'd be ever so grateful. Thanks!
