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Rest in Peace, Coretta
Coretta Scott King is dead.
Heaven help us all.
Posted by Rashid on January 31, 2006 at 7:12 AM | Comments (0)
Special Announcement
Please welcome to Old Gold Soul two highly qualified gentlemen who will greatly enhance the quality and efficiency of this organization.
Dwain Cherry is our Director of Special Events. Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, Mr. Cherry graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Psychology. He is currently a Masters student in the department of Counseling and Personnel Services at the University of Maryland – College Park. Mr. Cherry is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
He will coordinate Old Gold Soul sponsored events in the Washington, DC area and can be reached at dwaincherry@oldgoldsoul.com.
Kenneth Whitehurst is the Director of Programs. A native of New Bern, NC, Kenneth Whitehurst currently lives in Durham, NC and holds the bachelors and masters degrees from Duke University. He is currently serving as a community college system administrator and has served most of his adult working career in various positions in higher education. He is a member of several national civil rights and social justice organizations, 100 Black Men of America, Inc., and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
Mr. Whitehurst will schedule all public appearances for Rashid Darden and can be contacted via kenwhitehurst@oldgoldsoul.com.
Posted by Rashid on January 30, 2006 at 7:14 AM | Comments (1)
Too Early
So..... you know how from time to time, I will announce that some famous or quasi-famous person is my new husband?
WHYYYYYY did this sister of one of these people EMAIL ME last night? Why I'm protecting her identity, I don't know, but here is what she wrote. (The astute will figure out who she's related to)
Dude, you're whack. My friend just turned me onto you blog. Aaron is my brother, and "ethnically" speaking he is english, welsh, and african american. He is married ps, and not into dudes, aka you. Kinda gross man, kinda gross.
Bitch, please.
If you were truly "turned on" to my blog, you would see that I was merely commenting on how attractive he was. I do that quite frequently with men who are in the public eye. Get a fucking life, find another blog to visit, unknot your panties, and oh yeah -- I hope you didn't think I would approve your lame comments.
And its WACK. "Whack" is what Homie the Clown used to do to dumb hoes like you with his dirty sock.
***
Of course, I didn't send that email to her....maybe she'll read it here, I don't care. Plus, I don't REALLY know if that's the person's sister. She must be what, like 15? LOL
It's too early in the morning for this.
Posted by Rashid on January 29, 2006 at 7:37 AM
Check Me Out
Me....
by Bruce Hawkins.
Please check him out and support this artist.
If you leave a comment, please do so only after checking out his site. :-)
Posted by Rashid on January 27, 2006 at 10:02 PM | Comments (4)
I'm so excited....
I spoke to Neil last night, really to see how his birthday was (he's 57 now) but then we started talking about the book cover and I was absolutely stoked.
Okay, he's not really 57, LOL.
I am really excited for the new cover and as soon as it's ready, of course we will share it.
I haven't done much updating to the rest of the website yet when it comes to COVENANT. Just been sending out Save-the-Date notices. I guess this weekend I will figure the best way to integrate the new with the old. Or maybe I'll just wait until the cover is ready.
Are you excited too?
I'm doing a lot of travel this year (God willing I can afford it all). I decided last night to visit a good friend of mine in Philly during February and the next weekend I'll be going to Columbua to visit with four other friends. I need these mini-vacations -- life is hard, lol.
But off to the showers for me.... another day of educating the little ankle-biters commences shortly!
Posted by Rashid on January 24, 2006 at 6:41 AM | Comments (5)
A lot
A lot is on my mind....as is usually the case.
Enjoy your work week, Lazarus Freaks. :-)
Posted by Rashid on January 23, 2006 at 8:00 AM
Da*Link*Went
I apologize for my lack of updates....I got sick. AGAIN. I am feeling somewhat better and I hope to be back at work on Monday.
I haven't been able to spread the word about Covenant like I want to, so please help. If you please, just cut and past the following message into an email and send it to everyone you know. :-) Post it in your blogs; put it up in MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and Tribe; hell, use it as your away message!
*****snip here*****
COVENANT, the follow-up to Rashid Darden's debut novel LAZARUS, will be available for pre-order exclusively at www.oldgoldsoul.com on February 1, 2006.
*****snip here*****
That's it! I will post more later, of course, but right now I just want people to save the date.
Thanks so much!
Posted by Rashid on January 22, 2006 at 9:06 AM | Comments (1)
Deja Vu: The Genarlow Wilson Case
A 15 year old gives a 17 year old a blow job.
The 17 year old is now in prison for ten years.
Here we go again:
www.wilsonappeal.com <---- PLEASE sign the petition, y'all.
But read the article first.
Posted by Rashid on January 15, 2006 at 6:43 AM | Comments (21)
COVENANT
Covenant will be available for pre-order on Wednesday, February 1, 2006.
Quantities will be extremely limited, so I am strongly suggesting that you place your order when the sale begins.
I am pleased to announce that Neil Wade, the designer of Lazarus, is designing the cover of Covenant. The brand new design will be unveiled in a few weeks.
Covenant will be shipped in May. Due to the limited quantity, I am also strongly suggesting that you reserve your copy during the pre-order sale, as there is no guarantee that the novel will be available on Amazon.com
Just a heads up....see you February 1!
Posted by Rashid on January 11, 2006 at 6:35 AM | Comments (7)
Focus and Refocus
Pray for me as I try to reach some goals for COVENANT this week.
Posted by Rashid on January 10, 2006 at 6:29 AM | Comments (2)
Insult
I probably got the worst insult about LAZARUS today:
"Predictable."
And the thing is, I didn't even ask this person for their opinion.....I don't say that to be mean, it was just sorta random how it came out.
I just said "okay" and left it at that.
UPDATE:
He didn't mean it like that. I told him I felt kind of insulted, and he explained what he really meant. "Predictable" was just a poor word choice -- the actual sentiment was that since the situations were so similar to his own real life experiences, he could predict what might happen next. A better choice of words may have been "I could relate" or "empathize" or something. Change the perspective from the work to the reader.
No harm, no foul.
Posted by Rashid on at 12:14 AM | Comments (2)
The Great Tech Fiasco of 2006
Greetings.
My computer was in the shop for a week -- no blogging, no emailing, no nothing.
I have lost every email I received before January 2 or 3, 2006. I have also lost every date in my calendar and EVERY contact I had in my addressbook. All of this information was in Microsoft Outlook, which had to be wiped from my machine.
Please do NOT send me your contact information as of yet. In about a week, I will send out a mass email requesting that information, but as of now, I'm just not able to do that.
Don't worry -- all of my manuscripts, poems, essays, and notes are safe. I didn't lose a single file except for those associated with MS Outlook.
I will know with certainty in a day or so whether that information can be recovered.
Thanks for understanding.
Posted by Rashid on January 8, 2006 at 11:03 AM
Wow
I went on a date.
Wow.
(And my computer was in the shop for a week, but he's feeling much better now.)
Posted by Rashid on at 12:14 AM
Words to Live By
The messed up part is that I wrote that whole previous entry for a reason I didn’t even mention.
As I was cleaning this weekend (cuz you know black folks gotta clean they house before the new year) I found a sheet of paper that had these words on it:
Words to Live By:
Dream.
Desire.
Reality.
Goals.
Work.
Enthusiasm.
Perseverance.
Patience.
Experience.
Flexibility.
And it made a whole bunch of shit flood back into my consciousness that I sorta pushed back. See, those words were the nucleus of the birthday present I was going to make him. It was like a scrapbook, sorta, with each word on its own page and then a quote to go along with each word. Like for “Dream” I found the quote “As long as one has a dream in his heart, he cannot lose the significance of living.” (Howard Thurman, btw) And for “Desire” I found “Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours. (James Baldwin)
So when shit didn’t work out, I was like well, we’re still friends, I can still send him this. That would be nice. Then I was like well, what would the real reason be? Is it to show him what he’s “missing?” To some how rub it in? Or is it the opposite – to subconsciously beg for him back?
I didn’t have the answers to those questions, so I didn’t complete the project. Didn’t send it to him. Sent him an email wishing him a happy birthday (no response) and then a phone call wishing him happy new year (it was then that I received the return email).
Part of me knew that I was always thinking of him more than he thought of me, at least in “that” way. So maybe part of me wanted to see if I crossed his mind at Christmas time. (I didn’t) or at New Years (of course not).
You see the games we play, even if only in our own minds?
And you see why I had to set the bar super high this year? Things like the gift I described above, well, that’s just ME. (That’s also me being BROKE, but that’s another story.)
I need the type of man who will live hundreds of miles away, but drive up to see me when he has the opportunity. He never did. When there was a choice to do that, he didn’t. Little things like that can be rationalized away as they happen (“He’s so busy, he needs the rest.”) But it builds into resentment when you see how little you get paid, how much you spent to be with him, and how all your leave is GONE. And you look at his life and see how much more he has (materially) than you, and how little you got back emotionally, which would have more than made up for the lack of the material things, which you don’t even really think about for real because you’re just not that kind of person in the first place………
And really, I’m not a tit-for-tat kind of person, at least not literally. I believe in compromise. I believe that a person should give what they can, how they can. For example, say I like a dude that’s into pro football. And personally, I derive no enjoyment from pro football. The kind of person I am…I’ll watch a game with you, okay. I’ll let you “teach” me about the game, if that’s something you’re passionate about. But at the end of the day, my “gift” to you is to take note of when the games are on and LEAVE YOU ALONE during those times. And the type of man I’m looking for needs to acknowledge that “Hey, Rashid is cool – he leaves me the fuck alone when the game is on.” Because it’s not just about ME not liking football – it’s about acknowledging that it is an interest of my man’s, and that it would be rude of me to interrupt that time of his day.
At any rate, that’s all I wanted to add. Clearly, I am feeling more raw about this than I initially thought, but that’s what happens when you leave a Cancer man alone with his own mind for long periods.
Posted by Rashid on January 2, 2006 at 9:44 PM
Fresh for 06
Well, it’s a new year.
On the first day of 2006, my computer was infested with spyware.
I was nearly flooded out of my living space.
And I fell out of bed.
*le sigh*
The good news is that I wasn’t injured, the water has mostly receded, and the computer repair people will be here on Tuesday morning, although they were supposed to come today.
After a few months of really, extremely digging this one dude, things didn’t work out. Surprise, surprise.
I had a good conversation about this with my friend Desmond last night. Part of the conversation (and my entire latest man situation) made me sad. Part of it made me smile and laugh. But all in all, it made me reflect on a few things.
I really deserve to be treated with warmth, compassion, kindness…or, as Diddy said months ago, I deserve to have my expectations met.
I do have some bitterness, yes I do. I don’t know why I hope that one day, when he calls, he’ll just say “You know what, Rashid? Fuck it, let’s be together. I’m sorry.”
But you can’t expect “sorry” from people like that. I dunno, at this point it’s not as personal as it might have been a year ago, or five years ago.
I’m not trying to start off my new year on a sour note, just an honest one. Y’all know how I do.
I did learn one thing, though. And it’s not just advice for myself, because in general, I really am not feeling the long-distance thing. But if you are someone who believes in it, here is the advice:
Be prepared to maintain a certain level of intensity for the duration of the relationship. People who date other people in the same city get to see each other as often as they want, without regard to money spent on travel or so-called “daytime minutes.” There are more opportunities to “show” how much you care about somebody when you live near each other. When you are in a long-distance relationship (or courtship) there is no way to “show” how much you care – you must tell the other person! And if the other person is me, tell them frequently!
As I told Desmond last night, I am insecure about such things – with good reason! We both had a good laugh at that one. But seriously…I can’t maintain a courtship through the fog of second-guesses. Communicate with me. Communicate with me constantly.
Anyway, my point…intensity is important in long-distance relationships. No, you don’t have to call every day. But if that’s how your relationship began, don’t change it up without adequate warning. Don’t make your partner guess. And when your partner feels neglected, don’t treat him (or her) like anything less than your equal.
O-Ren Ishii aka Cottonmouth had to come out only once during this latest fiasco. (It wasn’t really a fiasco, but I so enjoy the word that I had to use it.) The dude started doing this Socratic thing where he was asking me all these leading questions to prove his own point. I had to say HOLD UP, PATNAH…I deaded that one real quick. Don’t try to minimize my feelings…
Yes, I run hot and cold. Yes, I flip-flop. I do try to protect my heart. That’s an open secret. When we were talking, I wanted to talk to him more. I was trippin’ when I didn’t hear from him. I’M INSECURE, D’UH! lol….but that was so not the POINT, ya know? But like, when I say “Let’s just be friends” don’t fucking start to call me MORE!!! Ugh! That brings me back to something I said earlier…I WANT him to say “I fucked up – you were THE ONE but I fucked up.” But that’s obviously not going to happen BECAUSE HE JUST DOESN’T LIKE ME THE WAY I LIKED HIM! Why can’t I understand that? No matter how many fucking a-holes in the past have put me through the exact same roller coaster, I still can’t get a handle on the fact that they NEVER come crawling back.
I have, however, learned this…and this time better than before, I understand…
It’s not my fault.
I think this past time, although I did come out of my own comfort zone more than I wanted to, I felt that I was in more control than usual. I wasn’t swept up into the whole romance of the situation. Lucky for me he just wasn’t that romantic in the first place, so I guess that was a blessing.
Don’t get me wrong…I liked him a lot. I really really did. Like, definitely husband material. I don’t think I’ve ever dated someone who I was so ready to drop everything for.
But for whatever reasons, he didn’t really want the same thing from me at the same time. Had this been a year from now, maybe. A year ago, possibly. But for whatever reason, we met each other at a point where we thought we knew what we were looking for, found it, then…whatever.
Shit happens.
Now, this all went down weeks ago. Yeah, it’s still raw for me because we’re friends. And I won’t say that it’s hard to be his friend – he’s a great person. But I do need some space and time. I can’t just jump into being in his circle – I know his friends in the context of “I like you so I am going to be on display until I know your friends like me.” I know, they probably don’t think of me in that way, but meeting all his friends was a very pressure-filled weekend for me – I don’t think he fully appreciated that.
They say the best way to forget a man is with another man. LOL maybe they don’t and I just made that up.
It’s weird being on the “dating” scene again. It’s a drag, really, because god dammit if I just didn’t spend three months courting somebody else. Dammit if I didn’t just tell my entire life to somebody else. DAMN do I really have to do this again????
In 2005, I gave men the opportunity to step up their game. In 2006, no more chances. Come correct, or don’t come at all. Come correct – all the time – or step to the side and give somebody else a chance. Do everything right the first goddamned fucking time.
In 2006, you will earn the right to compromise. I apologize in advance, but…no more. Blame the men that came before. But I gotta do what I gotta do to be protected and feel protected. And loved. And desired.
The worst feeling in the world (to me) is to have given of myself, both literally and figuratively, for what amounts to nothing. To have invested so much into a person (or people) who threw you away, or changed their minds after they slept with you.
It makes one feel like a whore, even if that’s not what you set out to do.
Which goes back to my whole push for celibacy thing. Can’t feel like a whore if I don’t have sex, now can I?
And trust me…I’m not on a hate all men kick. I am going to enjoy dating! But this will all be on my terms.
Some might think I have built a wall…I just think I have raised the bar…so high, that the man who reaches it will be “the one.”
Or Jesus.
Whoever comes first.
Posted by Rashid on at 9:16 PM