This blog is an extension of the topics covered on The Kyle Phoenix television show, Kyle Phoenix books which are available on Amazon and YouTube videos by Kyle Phoenix.
Tears, ebony tears, that turn to type and illuminate
I've read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison going on four or five times now, floored, awestruck, enraptured each time, every twist and turn a new surprise arrives. Milkman is a wonderful archetype for a Black man searching for what he can claim as his own. His mind, his body, his sex, money? What is his and not tainted by the past, by racism, by internal family feuding? This is what I call a "Patience Book", you have to sit with it the way you would sit with a child on a Sunday afternoon. Patience. You have to breathe in rhythm with this book. Morrison is one of those few writers that it's silly to ask all of your questions of even after you finish the book.
Pick it right back up and breathe, savor each page, have patience. It is not an easy read for it is literature and you are reading, truly reading. Not surfing through pulp fiction knowing that the hero lives, the heroine is saved and everybody sleeps well on the last page. Uh uh. Patience. What else but patience could you use to understand Magdalene, Pilate, Corinthians? My all time, all time, all time favorite literary scene that chills me, tears me up, knocks me around hard and then uplifts me: Pilate at the funeral. "That was my baby, That's my baby, AND SHE WAS LOVED!"
Honey, welcome to real African American literature, impossible to translate to film for this is patience reading. Patience, free at last, free at last!
As we explore manhood as African American men, we're challenged as Milkman Dead is in this book to separate ourselves form our carnal desires and our parents. Following along the trajectory of Joseph Campbell's identification of the hero on a quest, Milkman must confront the ghosts, demons and histories of the family he was born into. We then spiral through the Seven Days who for every Black person killed, kill a White person and then into Milkman's sisters and their imprisonment in the times they live in, even as privileged women. Morrison's attention to historical detail and social alertness to positioning this book between the early 1900's up through the 1970's forces the reader to understand that Civil Rights didn't exist for everyone in the same way, in fact many Blacks were at first frightened about desegregation. Discover this book, read it, then read it again, maybe even buy the audio version sometimes on a Sunday I put on one of Ms. Morrison's audio books and let her amazing voice lull me through the day, the poetry of her words, a passage suddenly appearing from the ether, anew line caught that I don't remember reading......rocks me.
Rocks.
Me.
"That was my baby, That's my baby, AND SHE WAS LOVED!"
Thank you!
Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us/Share this post on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/
My past reviews of the Anita Blake series have been back and forth between one and three stars because the series was developing, finding it's footing and developing of the character. There are still flashes of the old problems here but it's far more under control. This book was not only good in the places but pretty much as a book as a whole. Though I will say I hedged my bet by buying it for 60% off and I will admit that there is still a lot of conversational psycho analyzing going on in the character's interactions.
There is a really interesting point of Anita having to open herself up sexually beyond simply a puritannical/Christian sense of one woman, one partner which is an interesting dynamic. Also the concept of fluidic sexualities within the sphere of people she's around, there is a true pushing towards omnisexuality. That's a great element of this book and how everyone's powers---vampires, werewolves, wereleopards, etc.---is so intrinsically linked to sex and emotional intimacy. And that the literal focal point of all of this is someone who has prudish values to such free love and sex.
While Richard, the werewolf king may seem like the stick in the mud to them truly being a team, the ultimate kind of family, I think he is the most human of them all. He doesn't like what he is, what's around him, what he's been forced to become----there was no choice in it for him and I realized in his hesitations and depression and anger he is the most human of them all. Unfortunately everyone else has made it so mandatory that he accept this whole lifestyle eventhough none of them else have regular lives outside of all of this weirdness. It would be nice if the inherent selfishness of the group is explored in that it's ok that someone doesn't want to be a part of this world.
Onto the villainess, Belle Morte!
I'm glad she didn't get a bullet in the head and is being saved as another problem for the future and this whole Mother of All Darkness is very interesting and it looks like it's part of Anita's destiny to be a link to all of these supernatural tribes to deal with this evil. What I do find interesting is how everyone is pushing in their "vampire worlds" this ultimate Uber Evil (Angel, Buffy, here) and at the same time here in the book the government (rightfully so) is taking an interest in all of these factions and using them for their own means. It's about time.
I hope thatthe series doesn't shut down after a book or two because their are international dilemnas out there. It's also a pet peeve of mine that for all of their talking and constant emotional analyzing they never TALK to each other. They talk abotu themselves and push and pull but there are a couple of times in the novel where it would've been nice for Anita to pull Jean Claude aside and sit for a couple of hours to understand the vampire rules. Sometyimes her ignorance is used as a device to tell the reader things that we don't know about this world but it also serves to keep the exposition going on for tooooooooo long.
As always the criminal investigation of the book doesn't get underway until page 100-125 which if you pay attention to the pacing of previous novels is how it always happens, the predictability caused the loss of one star. The hitman aspect of this was a little thin, thinner than most of the criminal plots of the book and more of harked back to characters that appeared in the beginning of the books to wrap up the end. That was the weakest aspect of the book in that this whole other sub-plot was developed as something that I expect will ultimate appear in future books.
I was very pleased with this book, it has much more polish and isn't as reliant on Anita being able to shoot anyone and anything to beat it. That showed a maturity of the work and it's nice to see Anita enjoying and accepting having so many varied lovers and the bonding of being part of a pack. As I was reading the book, aside from the romantic part of this and the erotica, it was great to see Anita growing and questioning why she loves as she doesn’t, why she pushed people away. It would be nice to see another female in the book to give another perspective on her---what ever happened to her best friend?
The children vampires, Valentina and Bartolome are an excellent addition to the cast of what is turning into a very unique "family". I was thinking that this sort of village living and loving would be a great thing.
Enjoy!!!!
Thank you for reading,
Kyle Phoenix
Email: kylephoenixshow@aol.com
Website: http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Blog: http://kylephoenixshow.blogspot.com/2012
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us on Facebook or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast
Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a great book with lots of sound practical advice!
I've been very lucky over the years, by that I mean that I've had the opportunity to explore being an entrepreneur. I started when I was 14 years old, a national magazine on a small scale and what I learned from that I would later articulate in other projects for publishing and even now on Amazon. I went to a Rich Dad seminar in New York City. I expected there to be an exhaustive push to purchase the various products available through his company but instead it was a full on lessons in business. We were actually given workbooks and situations culled from the audience to look at how systems work and their business potential. This was all done by Robert Kiyosaki himself and his team of RIch Dad Advisor's and his wife, Kim.
I will tell you what all of this has helped to congeal in my head. One, money does not exist. Now this may seem to be contradictory to the entire concept of what Kiyosaki's books seem to extort on the surface but it doesn't. Again this is a radical concept, but I think that after a certain number, money is simply a concept. The majority of people think of working from paycheck to paycheck and what can be done with that money (after taxes usually 50% of one's annual number salary), unless you make a staggering amount, you can't get ahead.
What I think the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series gives one the insight to do is recognize all of the systems you're in. First what your money is, doing a spreadsheet on yourself and your worth, figuring out your goals and so forth and then the legal areas that affect your money. Most people know how much they make weekly, what that number should be annually but we rarely keep track of WHY those numbers are affected as they are. The difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich understand the power of their tax contributions and how much they absolutely have to make and how much they don't.
Rich people also think about money for sport not only for survival. Here's a mental game I've learned to play: I imagine what businesses I would build in a neighborhood I'm walking in, what I can see that would work, what wouldn't, etc..---cost analysis evaluation of places. I also regularly look at Lotto prizes and figure out exactly how much that money is----10 million after taxes, withholding= 4 or 5 million really isn't that much to last a lifetime.
This is where Rich Dad, Poor Dad becomes interesting and the book delves into this: How to make money make more money?
We all assume that getting a job is the easiest way to make money and then we assume that a business is so difficult to manage that we don't have the ability to do so. And yet amazingly, I started my first business when I was 7 selling papers, I would buy Sunday papers for 50 cents and sell them for 75 cents because I delivered the Sunday paper early in the winter. That simple. A month later I had two employees, the babysitter's children and was pulling in profit from three buildings.
Most people want answers. Answers the way your boss tells you to sit there, do this this way, deliver it by this time and then go home. Thats what people miss in this book----being told what to do. But ultimately they want to be TOLD what to do, become rich and then they will have the freedom to be "free to do whatever they want". Being free is everyone's greatest desire and fear. We have become a society that values conformity over creativity.
People want to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and be told, put 5 dollars in a red box for ten years and you'll be a millionaire. Do this the right way and your life will be perfect. This isn't the way to be successful. There are ways of educating one's self----first books like this. I recommend making a study of the entire Rich Dad Series. You must make a study of first money, then yourself, then what to do with both.
I further recommend Tony Robbins Personal Power, Getting the Edge, Awaken The Giant because you must articulate what you want in the Universe. What if money is similar to the concept of the Matrix? What if the difference between me and John D. Rockefeller is a Universal expression of my potential in material manifestation? Visualization, understanding what money is, how to use it, how to grow, what real estate is, learning to think.
I think I will end this lifetime as affluent. Why? Because not only have I maintained studying these kinds of books but because my video "games" are HSX.com and an Entrepreneur PC game. I think that Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad shouldn't answer questions such as numbers of what to do or how to do because life isn't about hand holding in the concept that people want it to be and honestly every person is different in terms of commitment level and ability. Did Obi Wan teach Luke how to transcend death or lift an X Wing fighter the first time? No.
You have to understand business, law, taxes. Really considering my investment future, what to do with money I may receive NEXT year in my tax returns, looking at my 401k plans and realizing that I could invest the money better, avoiding mutual funds and then designing an exit strategy for invested money---a concept pushed from the get go in Rich Dad, Poor Dad ---Enter Strategies, How Much You Need For the Lifestyle You Want and then business Exit Strategies.
Thinking ahead, critical thinking about yourself and your financial life and desires. This book will open your mind and then the rest is up to you.
Thank you,
Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us on Face Book or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/
I was deeply moved by this movie. Here in NYC its 10 dollars to see a movie and I saw this twice and bought the soundtrack----a [big]investment. I do like Bruce Willis as an actor and Monica Belluci who I first saw in Under Suspicion, here and now in the Matrix Unloaded is a total knockout, not just because she's pretty but because you can see her thinking. Much the way Catherine Zeta-Jones acts in films ---you can see even if this person is pretending they are thinking about this scene as if it is reality and their characters are infused with the hesitation, the deliberation of intelligent people who don't blurt all they know or suspect.
Willis as always is yet another shade, another degree, another facet of an accomplished actor who is striving for a versatility that is ingratiating.
The film was incredible because it so accurately dealt with the murky complexity of war. Suddenly on a simple mission to snatch 4 missionaries out of a hospital village that is in the line of the now killer spree military, Willis's small force finds themselves with loads of moral dilemmas. Belluci won't go without her patients and three of the missionaries refuse to go at all so strong is their commitment to the African people they tend. To get them moving Willis lies to Belluci and then can't live with the lie when they leave behind dozens of helpless people. What drove me in this film is what would I do, what is the military's responsibility, what is a human being's responsibility to another? Do we just abandon each other on "orders" or political ties that may not even touch us personally or is every life valuable?
When this film came out, the Iraq attack was on and people were literally screaming in the streets about kill, kill, kill.
War is an abomination. It is literally the raping of the human race as an action to take against another. And yet we not only do it but produce it as entertainment. What made this film stand out, I generally don't go to war films nor gangster films, is that the very message of this film is about the people who are caught in between all of this drama. People who are just drinking a glass of water, raising their families, tending their fields.
The film also demands a conclusive answer to a central question, a presupposition of war----you must be able to kill women and children. Put a gun to their heads or allow them to die. And there comes a point when the soldiers can not do this, nor watch it be done. That's what makes this film stand out and why I heartily recommend it to people who don't get off on war, on gore, on watching the pantomime of people dying.
I cried during the movie because I knew that a few thousand miles to the East people, just normal folk, were being slaughtered much as the people in the film were, simply for being caught between two armies/ideologies.
Akosua Busia plays one of the rescued villagers, she was Celie's sister in the Color Purple and did a heavy re-write on Beloved the screenplay. She is a commendable actress though her part here has to embody such positive African sentiment that it does seem maudlin, or too "cloying" of gratitude. She is an excellent actress and the best twist of all is how Belluci's character makes it clear, without regards to race, that these are HER people and she will not be safe if they aren't safe. And it soon becomes apparent during the film that she will even lie to the American soldiers to protect her adopted people. That form of not simply heroism but diverging from the norm stance----a character willing to die, to put it all on the line without even having a weapon for the racial "other" is wondrous thing to see.
I also recommend the soundtrack which is moving and haunting and foreboding and as lush as the jungle these people move through. I enjoyed Antoine Fuqua's direction, particularly the African military being portrayed as a force so intent, so massive that literally the only thing that saves anyone from them is a deux ex machina. The title Tears of the Sun literally refers to the final ten minutes of the movie when the whole world has gone to hell and a battle breaks out that can't be won. I also like a good chase film, where someone is being chased and must compensate for the fact that they are outnumbered or outgunned.
This is a classic film and I don't use that lightly----particularly for the timeframe that it's come out in.
Thank you!
Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us/Share this post on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/
(I'm writing this because I've done lots of classes on the 48 Laws of Power and will start doing blogs and tv shows on the book and the Laws as well as Thick Face, Black Heart---stay tuned!)
I believe that so far the women and to some degree the men are trapped in that building with Star Jones. From purely the POV of a fellow student of the 48 Laws of Power, I have watched Star play a masterful game. Not only is she technically intelligent but she's a masterful psychological evaluator and has impeccable manners. I predict she's the winner! Even when she objects or is wronged or is in the wrong, she presents the most professional face and level of maturity. They've all gotten on her nerves at various stages (Dionne Warwick, NeNe, LaToya) and she's been honest but at the same time she's held back from losing her temper, her cool, her dignity.
I normally don't watch TV but I was on my way out one evening and watched it just to see what Celebrity Apprentice was as I was thinking could I use this in the classroom teachings I do. I was blown away (and late) by watching the construction of the show and particularly how Star Jones was laying in the cut. How she was applying her lawyering skills at negotiation, manipulation and evaluation to half a dozen people so effortlessly. They're putty in her hands. She loses I'm done. She gets tossed off I'm done watching.
The NeNe/LaToya two-shot where she brought them back in (saving Hope for the next fall guy position---Marlee and NeNe being her real competition) was an excellent tactical move. I'll also add that negotiating product placement for her book Satan's Sisters (five women on a daytime talk show--fiction---Lord, are any of us ready for her! lol) in the opening promos of EVERY show! Wonderful. No, no, it gets better----Star's deflecting a downgrading of her abilities and picking it up with a grand compliment-----"My best mentors so far have been Johnnie Cochran in law, Barbara Walters in television and now you, Mr. Trump in business"----I nearly fainted in ecstasy!!!!
LaToya----a little "special" and I think I mean that in a upper class/wealth way where she's steeped in being wealthy and treated a certain way and not use to this level of engagement and competition---never had a chance. I think she's in some ways genuinely kind and her apology to NeNe seemed real (the fact that Star orchestrated it made me delirious with joy!) and then Star bringing the two easiest targets to eliminate while leaving Marlee and Hope as lame ducks to get burned strategically in the future was orgasmic. She is a mistress at Thick Face, Black Heart! She wedged NeNe, still new in getting over her grudge against the slightly bougie LaToya's classist condescension---she would have no where to go but to aligning with Star against LaToya who was put between Star who's so neutral that Trump himself might be in danger from her and NeNe who she'd been offending for awhile so no alliance/support was possible. Delightful manipulation! I think Trump canned LaToya on the grounds that she was playing short game.
Ms. Star Jones is playing to win.
*****Update: She didn't win. And sure as Pepsi I stopped watching when she was "fired" but I did feature her and Marc Lamont Hill on The Kyle Phoenix Show focusing on Resources: Persistence and Motivation, where he is interviewing her at an Entrepreneur Conference in Atlanta.*****************
There's lots of style and flash in this film. A topless Halle Berry---I really didn't see the hoopla over her boobla-------and some interesting special effects with computers and graphics but ultimately it’s a Mission Impossible episode gone on too long. John Travolta over acts----hopefully on purpose. Halle Berry plays sultry and shocked---two notes, and Jackman plays reluctantly moral. Everyone is "playing" something and why is that? I think it's because Dominic Sena's direction is really great here. The use of slow motion and angle shifting is really inspired and it's very difficult to create balance. Great direction may mean lackluster acting or a shoddy script. It takes a lot to bring all three of these elements together into a synthesis. It’s a little scary when I actually liked the special effects more than a film.
This is by far my most rapt workshop audiences, where attendees are early, quiet, engaged and generally happy with the handouts and videos. Why? The penis for men is important to some more so than others. Because I teach all sexualities, my training's include in-depth and detailed information about the anus, the full body, the mouth, the testes, the prostate, the perineum and so on. As you see there are YouTube and various other site training videos that I’ve tried to convey a solid percentage of the in person training.
(To see video click below)
Of course about 90 minutes of videos isn’t enough information or description or lessons compared to the workshops---that are generally about 6 to 12 weeks in length, meeting for one or two evenings a week for about two hours.
Why does it take so long you wonder? Because of what I’ve learned after years and years of teaching these techniques, the physical is immediately possible but the emotional and mental work is often the most difficult. Women have it up on men, well, aware women, because part of their very gender involves menstruation and therefore a necessity for an intimate knowledge and understanding of their genitalia and its’ functionality. Men, however, receive only the barest informational trainings about their sexuality and men who aren’t heterosexual (gay, bi, queer, transsexual, sgl, etc.) generally learn about their sexuality in secret or from porn. Here’s the problem with those two venues that directly influences why my workshops can run 2 to 4 hours a week---there are no teachers. I spend about half of the time of all the workshops answering an abundance of physiology and sexuality and mythos-created questions about men and their bodies and the bodies of other men. You might be thinking that men with men would be more capable of being more attuned into what other men like or dislike. And that’s not always true.
The difference between Tops, Bottoms, Versatiles, Oral and those only interested in Frottage is something that is ripe with individualistic details and idiosyncrasies that leave more men unsatisfied in their sexual encounters than satisfied. But once you’ve bitten the sausage, so to speak, it’s hard to complain about it and even more difficult to stop during the metaphoric biting and ask questions, give directions, make suggestions. Men therefore learn sex shorthand that skims over much of what makes sex thrilling for men and women alike.
The first step is outlining what I’m going to be teaching and what you’ll learn by the end:
• Teach you about your body.
• Teach you about your genitalia.
• Teach you about balance.
• Teach you about new ways to have sex.
• Teach you exercises to extend your orgasms.
I then teach the losses by having “limited sex”:
• Many men are multi-orgasmic because their energy isn’t depleted by orgasm. You don’t want to climax when s/he’s ready for more.
• Most men’s erections don’t spring back to life quickly after ejaculation. As you age, it can even take a couple days to recover the ability to stay hard for long periods of time. Sex therapists call this the refractory period. So having an orgasm without ejaculating lets you repeat lovemaking as quickly and often as you want.
• Many men release lots of energy when they ejaculate which makes them, sleepy, and exhausted. Don’t ejaculate and you can stay energetic all night long.
• Many men lose the desire to continue making love after they ejaculate, suddenly ending the closeness and intimacy men and women crave. Some describe it as a if a power switch was turned off.
• Many men shut down emotionally and mentally as well as physically, cutting off the communion at multiple levels; Multiple Orgasms can help.
And then the gains:
• Have hours of orgasmic pleasure instead of just a few seconds of intense release.
• Experience continuous peaks of ecstasy throughout your whole body.
• Stay connected with your partner longer, deeper, and at more levels.
• Promote health, vigor, and mental clarity by retaining your energy.
• Keep your entire body energized. The Taoists believe that retaining your semen is highly nourishing and the key to longevity.
• Fully satisfy your partner’s previously unfilled sexual desires.
• Satisfy multiple partners one after the other without a break.
• Have bigger, stronger, longer-lasting orgasms when you finally choose a climax.
The above might seem like a no brainer but it takes men time to get comfortable talking about themselves, their desires, their pleasures, their errors and their curiosities. A lot of the workshop takes time in learning how to trust other men in the room to hear these questions and issues. Though every Top needs one there’s a stigma around being a Bottom and confusion around Versatiles and even more of confusion and stigma around Bi-Sexualism. As amazing as it might sound it takes time to get men to verbally remove shame from their sexuality, to remove bravado, to remove self-disgust. I personally think (and it’s been proven out in surveys) that STDs are passed so easily and thoroughly within the gay community because of this uncomfortability with one’s sexuality. And the lack of education one receives in something like being penetrated or how to penetrate or how to care for an uncircumcised penis or how all of those parts are affected and susceptible to STDs. I generally start with handouts from reputable books (see www.kylephoenixsite.com) or give out whole books with assignments to read it over and come back ready to discuss it.
Now for my tangential point: men of color (Black, Latin, Mixed, etc.) generally aren’t getting this information and generally don’t have as open a forum to discuss intimately their sexuality without shame or ridicule or a sense of alienation by being in a predominantly Caucasian group. (Having been in those groups I can tell you when you try to join in as graphically and as freely as the other men, it tends to be festishized---and that is definitely another blog!) This is one of the predominant reasons why men of color, Black and Latin specifically are the rising rates in HIV infection, Syphilis infection and HPV. It’s not that safe sex information isn’t permeating our communities; it’s that sexual trainings aren’t because of stigma and discrimination. Alternately teaching (or you learning) about how to be multi-orgasmic puts you more in touch and in control of your sexuality. Most men I teach talk about extremely fast, haphazard, park, bathroom or unsatisfying sexual encounters. The one’s that speak of great sex generally have some education form their own wiles or from a patient lovers knowledge. I will divulge that in teaching I’ve learned (and personally put to the test) a lot of the information I then teach and I’ve learned how to talk with someone and discover if they’re a good lover or not.
So we’ve learned a lot so far. Take your time, digest, and check out the videos. Part 2 and more specific lessons will follow.
