NUMBER 81
I’m hanging in there, but there are got damn days that I just want to get a taser and cut into their brains and find out what the hell is wrong with them. Why cause so much drama over nothing!! Why go thru all of that hell and high water to make someone else feel like crap because you do. Why are you being a 1st class chump? Why go thru all that? For some chump change to get something you do not need and cannot afford mentally, spiritually or physically!
You mean to tell me you don’t know how to pray or get help from either God, a statue of nimrod in the sphinx or something else that stands 8 feet high? Anything to calm you down. Just stop crapping all over me and others. We did not cause your situation to get screwed up royally painful. We were not there and don’t want to be there, just let the crap go. I and others are moving on and got other truly more important things to do, like have a great life. Figure it out, you anal nut!!!
OK, got that out of my system. So, let’s get to some books.
Below is a listing of E. Lynn Harris books. It’s 1994 and I was at the hairdresser in DC when one of the girls lent me his first book. I had always heard about being gay and/or bisexual and also knew, from being around my mother, grandmother and other elders, that it was not talked about. Probably because years later I found out that my Uncle was gay. It was not a big deal to me at the time because I did not see him that way. I saw a man who loved me and his friend loved me. Didn’t see the hurt, anger, frustration and hidden world they lived in. He and his friend (that’s what I called him), were, to me at least, great cooks and love to tell stories and I loved them. When my uncle’s “friend” died, I saw this man go from up to down into the lowest pits a human can go and that hurt me, but I did not know what to do and my mother and grandmother kept me and my step brothers at a distance. It was not until years later that I got to see my Uncle again, and this time, he was better, but not the same. Never the same again. This book reminded me of the struggle he must have gone thru and I will never understand why we just don’t accept people as they are. God will see and discuss what ever he wants with them in his own time, let them be, unless they are hurting someone, let them be. We need to more forward not backward.
The first book, INVISIBLE LIFE: A NOVEL, showcases Raymond Tyler Jr. from his college days through his years as a successful young attorney. It is in college that he encounters his first homosexual experience, at a time when he has a steady girlfriend. When he takes his first job in New York City, he settles into a bisexual lifestyle but becomes engaged to Nicole, the other central figure in the series, who ambitiously pursues a show business career while searching for the perfect man. Raymond ultimately chooses a gay lifestyle but unlike some of his friends, who are comfortable with their sexual preference, he reflects on his choice. Harris has created a body of diverse characters, a group of friends and family members who admirably demonstrate a continuity of love and support. This is a work about young middle-class black people who, regardless of sexual preference, are looking for the perfect partner.
The trilogy
INVISIBLE LIFE: A NOVEL - $10.91 Paperback Invisible Life: A Novel
JUST AS I AM - $10.21 Paperback Just As I Am: A Novel
AND THIS TOO SHALL PASS” - $10.95. And This Too Shall Pass: A Novel
The rest of his work continues stories of accepting yourself and GOD, which for some is easy and others it just right down crazy:
IF THIS WORLD WERE MINE - $10.21 Paperback If This World Were Mine: A Novel
ABIDE WITH ME - $11.18 - Paperback Abide With Me: A Novel
NOT A DAY GOES BY - $$11.99 (John and Yancey are introduced it this book)
ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS - $9.99 (John Basil Henderson, NFL Player and Yancey Harrington Braxton, Broadway star - those characters will having you saying, “Damn, are they crazy!!!) You know, I think I’m going to read this again.
A LOVE OF MY OWN - $11.99 (Raymond is back. Who do you think was his pass lover?)
WHAT BECOMES OF A BROKENHEARTED: A MEMOIR- $11.10 Paperback - His story about his life.
I SAY A LITTLE PRAYER - $9.99 - I Say a Little Prayer
JUST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE - $11.99 - Let’s just say, “Steammmy!, hilarious, and very real.”
BASKETBALL JONES - $11.99 - Another man hiding what he is and marrying a woman to cover it it. When will they learn, when!!!
MAMA DEAREST - $7.99 - That “off a few hooks,” Yancey is back and just as stupetrify as every.
IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE - $9.99fashionista royalty and the owners, Bentley L. Dean and his beautiful partner Alexandra, know it. But even Picture Perfect isn’t immune from hard times, so when Sterling Sneed, a rich, celebrity party planner promises to pay a ludicrously high fee for some models, Bentley finds he can’t refuse. Even though the job is not exactly a photo shoot, Bentley agrees to supply fifteen gorgeous models as eye candy for an “A” list party to look good, be charming and, well, entertain the guests. They don’t have to do anything they don’t want to, but...
His models are pros and he figures they can handle the pressure, until one drops out and Bentley asks his protege Jah, a beautiful kid who Bentley treats as if he were his own son, to substitute. Suddenly, the stakes are much higher, particularly when Jah falls in love with the hottest African American movie star in America. Seth Sinclair is very handsome, very famous, and very married—and his closeted gay life makes him very dangerous as well. Can Bentley’s fatherly guidance save Jah from making a fatal mistake?
Got to stick on one for Black History Year.
CHESTER HIMES - THE COLLECTED STORIES OF CHESTER HIMES - $20.00 - - - I went looking for this book because I was watching “A Rage In Harlem” with Forest Whitaker, the late Gregory Hines, Danny Glover and Robin Givens. It reminded me of my mother’s love for this author and and his books. He was one of the first African American writers she actually met and she enjoys reading his works because, as she says, “a black man knows how to write crime, “white people are OK, but black folks get down and dirty." So, you know I started collecting his work and also became a big fan. He is another original urban fiction writer with serious mystery plots that you still to this day come back to. He wrote this book while in prison and it shows the ranges from racism, poverty, domestic violence, and of course, it’s women who cause all of these “good, troubled black men” to lose their minds and commit crimes, yeah, right!!! We have that control you know!! So they say!
No comments:
Post a Comment