On Saturday November 16th 2025 I had the pleasure of attending my first OpenMic at Queens Central Library. I have never shared my poetry in front of an audience before. I write a lot of poetry but it never occurred to me to share it. I was so glad I didn't sign up to go first, it was the other poets that gave me the courage to share. I was going to pick one but I ended up sharing two. My appearance isn't in the video, because I was the one recording it; maybe next time I'll ask someone to record for me. The headliner was Jacqueline Jones LaMon. She is an acclaimed poet and author of...                                                                                                What Water Knows,  https://nupress.northw...

 Remember book reports when we were in school? For some they were a dreaded terrible thing, for others they were fun ways to recall your favorite book and an easy format to tell someone what the book was about. I've decided to post some reports of books I've read recently; let's jump right in.          Author:   Andrew Clements, Illustrated By Brian Selznick Title:    The School Story Main Characters:     Natalie Nelson , the writer, and  Zoe Reisman , her best friend Setting:   This story takes place in New York City Plot:   This story was about two elementary school girls that took on the dream to become a published author.   Personal Endorsement :   This was a really good book and it shows what can happen when people have support within their dreams. It shows the power of friendship without jealousy or envy. It also shows the power of focus and what can happen when one doesn't give up on ...

     The birth of Hip Hop is highly debated. The wave hit like a thief in the night. It hit the radio, movie screens and spread rapidly and soon break dancing, graffiti, MCing and DJing went around the world and back. I found it interesting that in the beginning back in the early 1970's there weren't any rap records. There were poetry records and you always had James Brown preaching the funk; but to create Hip Hop the DJ's took records that were already made preferably two of them and mixed them back to back. The parts that had no singing were MC'd over. There was no needle dropping, no rapping just music. That was hip hop, blending two records together and getting the crowd hyped up. Nu Sounds was rocking the set pre 1975 and the first park jam in Queens was at Lincoln Park in 1977 hosted by Geechie Dan.         The only way a person could listen to Hip Hop was live, in it's early days because at that time it had not been recorded yet. Then event...

    On October 31st 2025 I attended the Tamron Hall Show as an audience member. It was a fun experience. I met new associates networked a bunch and even got to talk to Tamron and laugh. The line was long and it was about a two hour wait before the show started. Priority tickets help a lot because you don't have to show up as early as one should with general tickets.       They had a great show prepared for us. It was pressure because it was all about sex! I became friendly with a mother and daughter and a beautiful woman with a bad ass fur coat. After the 4 of us met we were inseparable. Our row of seats went like this; me on one end of the aisle, the mom next to me, her daughter next to her and fur coat on the other end of the aisle. The first guest was author Laura Berman, PHD. She came to discuss her new book Sex Magic . It's about taking your body, mind, and relationship to the next level with spectacular intimacy. Funny thing I just wrote a book called...

        After the injury everything changed. Being laid up like that with no help. I had to hobble to the market only to be ran over by crowds of people that I couldn't keep up with. Being left by the Lyft because the driver couldn't figure out how to come around the corner. Just feeling helpless, abandoned and stranded. Feelings like this will put things in a different perspective really fast. Some people out there have major support and people around to help when things get tough and some people simply just don't. For me I'm one of the one's that don't but I find that strangers are always kinder to me than my own family who is by society's standards supposed to be our first safety net & supporters.       N-E-how being laid up like that and alone I had more uninterrupted time to think than I ever did in my life. Self reflection questions that I never even thought of started to pop into my mind. The first one was career wise. The question was ...