fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
Remember Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed? I read it religiously in college. The strip’s resident nerd-genius, Oliver Wendell Jones, had a habit of hacking into mainframe computers at large governmental or business entities. Matthew Broderick had nothing on this kid. In one series, Oliver hacked into the New York Times to impress his friend Milo…
One fine day in 2004, shortly before the great state of Massachusetts was about to become the first state in the Union to permit same-sex couples to marry, a group of folks, plaintiffs of the court case that ultimately brought marriage equality to the Commonwealth, had a meeting with then-Governor Romney. The meeting did not…
“When I woke up in a different room than I remembered falling asleep in, I knew it was going to be one of those days.” That’s a line I normally associate with the morning after I had a few too many. But that wasn’t the case, not this time. I went to bed in my…
Friend Patricia Dunn, author of the celebrated new YA (young adult) novel “Rebels by Accident,” and her colleague Christopher Messer run a series of essays on her blog entitled “Why Do I Write.” She asked me for a contribution and, after panicking about “OMG! I have to write on demand!” and other silly writer’s nonsense,…
My reason, bluntly, honestly, is quite selfish. I need President Barack Obama to win reelection because I need his healthcare initiative to take full effect on schedule in 2014. This isn’t for me personally. I have a full-on, old school, civil service-type job with old school, civil service-type benefits. My partner and I are covered….
There’s a photo making the rounds on Facebook showing three African Americans, two males and a female, faces turned to a wall while a harsh stream of water pins them against the building. The water is hitting one of the young men directly in the back. A caption in red letters reads: “This is why…
The oddest moment during the last night of the Republican National Convention wasn’t the awkward pantomime by Clint Eastwood. It came later, during Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech. He spent part of his time introducing himself, going on about his family history, how he likes strong women, and so forth; and part of the time bashing…
Intermediaries arranged a meeting. They selected a neutral location, the house of a mutual friend, which granted privacy and gave neither side an advantage. Lorraine’s mother thought it a waste of time. “Can’t mend a cracked teapot,” she intoned several times. Lorraine had to maintain hope, however, because her very existence hung in the balance. …
(Ed. note: Loosely based on a true story.) Mrs. Cobb stood in the classroom doorway during recess watching her flock. Two of her colleagues stood by an adjacent classroom talking, their voices deliberately hushed. Mrs. Cobb paid no attention to them, nor did she take their two-way chatter as a slight. She focused her attention…
Rachel Maddow, God bless her, has tried and tried to educate the men in politics and power about the whys and wherefores of women’s anatomy. She has her crew bring out the props — pennants, football helmets, brewskies — to help her enter the Man Cave, replete with a CGI backdrop of a pool table,…
