Life Among The Barbarians

Guest Post by Cole Riley

When Abby invited me to do a guest blog on her blog, Random Musings, I leaped at the opportunity. The timing was perfect. This week, my novel, Little White Lies, was published by Zane’s imprint at Simon & Schuster, Strebor Books. It is causing quite a stir. It has already been chosen as the main selection by the Black Expressions Book Club for December.

As my friend Zane says, “Little White Lies is an amazing novel about how making one bad mistake can change your entire life. It gives new meaning to "being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” However, in this terrible age of Trayvon Martin and the stop-and-frisk epidemic, I believe its themes are deeper than that. It’s about an all-out war against young black males and their neutralization by the greater society. As a journalist and former long-time reporter with The New York Daily News, I witnessed how the plagues of educational, economic, and legal freedoms are denied them.

Wanted Men Wanted

So I had a vague idea come to me about 2 weeks ago. A word collage of quotes. I wondered, no, I wanted to know what made men feel wanted. Often times there are talk shows and articles and blogs about women and their wants, needs, desires. But what about men? Surely, they wanted to feel wanted. And since I was questioning it, did men feel wanted by their families, friends, lovers, coworkers, society?

Learning Curve

July 22, 2010  12:01am

Gaining the confidence I need to finally start my portrait project, Emotional Black Male (once the work and life issues work themselves out of course). I’ve already seen my exhibit in my mind’s eye...

The bloopers and the brilliance began on the roof of my apartment building. Day 2 I took the camera with me to Williamsburg. Now Day 3 of learning how to use a digital camera, night shooting was my main objective. It totally wasn’t planned that I’d be in Times Square the day I wanted to shoot at night, but I guess I had to pop my photography cherry in Times Square.

I live and die by my camera phone. And before then I had a 35mm…years ago. One thing I love about photography is it allows me to feed my voyeuristic nature. I also love that photography gives emotion to the split seconds captured in an image. I have to learn about exposure. Some of the photos are way too dark. I also have to develop a steadier hand because I won’t always have a tripod with me (and I clearly can't shoot while in a moving car). Plus, I have to be more patient with the slow shutter and work on focus. The learning curve is always greatest when you’re first learning something and I’m having fun. Creating.

King Joke

A primetime special to announce what team he’ll play for… ridiculous. It’s bad enough we’ll get the play-by-play and Monday morning quarterbacks. A press conference, ok, I can deal with that. But this? His reps reached out to ESPN and James obviously agreed to it. Thanks, I appreciate that they’re donating the proceeds to the Boys & Girls Club (you should be donating to charities anyway). I won’t watch it but I know it’ll be hard to escape the hoopla especially if he decides to play for the Knicks or the Nets who’ll be moving to Brooklyn.

This is a basketball player. And he’s paid millions of dollars to do it.  I’m not saying someone shouldn’t have the opportunity to make a living off their talent but we don’t pay teachers and doctors anywhere near what they’re worth. And we wonder why so many young Black men wanna be ballers. When’s the last time we celebrated Dr. Benjamin Carson? As an ATC I would never make a fraction of what James makes and my job is to keep him healthy so he can continue to play.

I love athletes. I think what we, as a society, pay them is exorbitant. Look how much we pay movie stars. The president’s salary keeps rising. Clearly, we’re willing to pay a lot to be entertained.

It's Not You, It's My Fear Of You

I had such a great belly laugh this afternoon. It’s amazing what people do when they feel threatened and are given a little power. What made me laugh this morning was news of my friend being fired from her job. I’m not cold and heartless…let me explain. She was fired by someone, who although they’re the COO of the company she works for, he has no right, power, authority to fire anyone. Within 5 minutes of arriving at work, he asked to speak to her in the hallway with the HR rep present (who was also confused and dumbfounded) and was told she was no longer an employee at the company and just as quickly he ran back inside the office. Apparently said COO failed to remember what his duties were and the relationship the newly “unemployed” had with the owner of the company. There has been tension brewing between the two parties for months. Her rise and increase in responsibilities and duties, and his increasing feelings of ineptness and uselessness. Right now, a paid day off is the reward until the situation is figured out. My guess, someone’s gotta go.

This is not going to work out between the two of you

Random Musings on Global Warming and Hood Life

I started this blog in February by randomly musing about life and chimps. It's already December. Wow! A lot has happened this year. Good and bad, but nothing we can't grow and learn from.

Overheard on the streets today... One Black woman to her friend: He wanna get married but I'm like we don't gotta be married to have kids together...

And that is one of the major problems in the Black community.

Angry Big Sister

I received a call from my brother this evening. He started by telling me something funny then said he was angry. He explained this situation he’s been having at work – feels like they’re pushing him out. Big corporation got no respect or regard for the little guy. My brother is vocal. He will voice complaints without yelling or cursing or flailing his arm or threatening violence but I’ve seen my brother angry. I let him vent then gave my big sister advice while we cut the tension with jokes. He did mention that he remembered I told him that last time he had an issue at work not to carry on like the “Angry Black Man” – he’s likely to intimidate everyone and surely not get his point across or better working conditions or work relationships. I tried to reinforce that today and told him he needs an outlet for his anger. He said worked out. While we spoke on the phone he was on his inversion machine because his back had tightened up. He used to write tons of screenplays. That’s an idea we tossed around. I told him when he visits NY again I’d take him to one of the poetry events I frequent. “There’s tons of angry black men there. Write something so you could read, or just come and listen, get that sense of camaraderie. You may even find solutions in the words.”

A few hours later I was at Bowery Poetry Club witnessing creative genius or genius creatives. Taalam Acey (Mr. Manual Gesticulation that spits a mile a minute. I swear I can actually see the words waft out his mouth), Kasim Allah (whom I like to refer to as “King” accompanied with a curtsy every now and then in honor of his greatness), Ainsley Burrows (Jamaican Brethren who can prepare you for the verbal SATs just by listening to his poems) and Lamar Anthony Hill and Faraji Salim – two poets I just had the honor of being blessed by. The poems were sermons. There was one poem that made my eyes sting. Lamar Anthony Hill recited one about growing up without his father and finally forgiving him. At one point in the poem he said a woman cannot raise a boy into a man. I’ve been well aware of that fact and I’ve heard other poets say it before, but it just struck me tonight. What can a Big Sister do?