“I have admired and adored Michael Jackson from the first time I heard his name and listened to his music. I have never been more fascinated by an entertainer before or since… 

As a huge Michael Jackson fan and as a writer, I wanted to do something and give back to the entertainer for all the good feelings he has given to me and so many fans across this country and others. My gift to Michael is this positive book about his life and his music career.  

The thought to write this book came to me out of the blue when I was reading a [positive] article about him [which] left me with good feelings, compared to the sick feelings I get when I listen to the television and radio and hear all the negative press about him. So, I decided to [do] my small part by putting out some positive information about the Superstar!” 

-- Excerpted from Introduction (p. xvii) 

In the wake of Michael Jackson’s untimely passing, I’m sure his legions of devoted fans are looking for a way to keep his spirit alive. They would do well to consider picking up a copy of Michael Jackson: The King of Pop, a comprehensive anthology comprised of interviews, song lyrics, dozens of color and b&w photographs, and more.  

The literary equivalent of a bound fanzine, the book offers an uncritical peek at Jackson both from his own, self-serving perspective and that of the admittedly-adoring author. Despite her gushing, syrupy sweet tone, the tome is still fairly fascinating primarily because Michael comes off as a very sympathetic figure who clearly became bizarre because he never had a normal childhood. It’s sort of like how a dog or a cat is worthless as a pet if it’s weaned from its mother at too young an age. 

Consider Jackson’s response when asked by a reporter from USA Today in 2001 whether he’s “resentful that stardom stole his childhood. “Yeah, it’s not anger, it’s pain,” he admitted. “People see me at an amusement park or with other kids having fun, and they don’t stop and think, ‘He never had that chance when he was little.’ I never had the chance to do the fun things kids do: sleepovers, parties, trick-or-treat. There was no Christmas, no holiday celebrating. So now you try to compensate for some of that loss.”  

In another article, Michael takes on the paparazzi, saying “The tabloid press are bastards, and you’ve got to have rhinoceros skin to deal with that ignorant mentality… They simply make it up… I’m nothing like the way the tabloids have painted me out to be, nothing…

They’re the ones who are crazy.”        

He even sounds very convincing when he explains that his trademark crotch-grabbing dancing “isn’t sexual at all.”   

A coffee table keepsake which makes a convincing argument that while Michael Jackson might have been the consummate performer onstage, as soon as the music stopped he always turned back into the naïve innocent who had never grown up and couldn’t hurt a fly.  

Everyone Hates a Ball Hog but They All Love a Scorer: The Complete Guide to Scoring Points on and off the Court By Coach Koran Godwin, Create Space Books / Jump StartHoops.com Paperback, $14.95, 144 pages ISBN: 978-1440459665 

I broke a scoring record at every level I competed. At my high school, I hold the single season record, and at the University of North Florida, I am the all-time leading scorer. Though people always asked the key to my success, I never shared it, until now… 

--Excerpted from the Introduction (p. ix-x) 

For generations, it has always been a little mind-boggling how many African-American boys say they plan to be pro basketball players when they grow up. Generally, to the detriment of no one but themselves, they tend to underachieve in school because of an emphasis on athletics over academics during their dogged pursuit of that elusive dream.  

Unfortunately, these kids are too young at the time they take such a limiting career path to understand the long odds against making it to the pros. More importantly, they don’t appreciate that successful NBA stars are not only good on the court, but have the rest of their priorities in life in order, including their grades. 

This is the point driven home by Coach Koran Godwin in Everyone Hates a Ball Hog but They All Love a Scorer, a book which would make a great gift for any child inclined to put all of his eggs in one basket, the hoop basket. Coach Godwin speaks from experience, having excelled in the same sport all the way to the college level until an ankle injury aborted a very promising career. However, because he had always kept basketball in proper perspective, he had a relatively-smooth adjustment to that disappointing turn of events.  

In a straightforward no-nonsense style, Godwin points out that, “My priorities were simple: God, family, school and then basketball.” Consequently, he wasn’t a lost soul when he couldn’t enter the NBA after college. No, he had never neglected what matters most in life, thanks to the values instilled in him by the loving mother he freely credits with helping to keep his head screwed on straight. Today, still a devout Christian, Koran serves as a special sort of coach and role model, one who tempers his sage basketball savvy with a more important message designed to reach youngsters unhealthily blinded by b-ball ambition.       

The Hiptionary By Mahmoud El-Kati Papyrus Publishing Paperback, $12.00, 214 pages ISBN: 978-0-9675581-7-2

To be hip is to speak the sometimes code-switching language of Black Americans…

Hiptionary refers to well-established traditions of African-American speech patterns, with changes and adaptations as the years go by. They are, strictly or grammatically speaking, non-dictionary words. The attempt in this volume is to collect representative samples of this ongoing and influential part of American English, and give due recognition to it as a major force in shaping the way American English is spoken.” 

--Excerpted from the introduction  (p. 1-3) 

Way back in 1941, Professor Melville J. Herskovits published The Myth of the Negro Past, an exhaustive, anthropological research study which debunked the prevailing notion that Africans brought to America in chains were savages with no cultural traditions worth preserving. In fact, his seminal work proved that, quite to the contrary, Black folks arrived with a rich heritage which remained readily reflected in the many Africanisms which had somehow survived the Middle Passage and centuries-long ordeal of slavery and subjugation. 

Herskovits’ findings are critical in the debate about the use of Ebonics, which many simply misread as ungrammatical English in need of correction while others recognize the so-called “slanguage” as the product of the clash of African and European languages. Regardless, one thing we can all agree on is that Blacks have made significant artistic contributions to America in an ongoing fashion, and one way this is reflected is in all the colorful words and phrases which they have coined generation after generation.  

Perusing what is essentially a Black dictionary, I was struck by how many different entries there were for buttocks (badunkadunk, boody, booty, boom-boom, junk in the trunk and stacked), Marijuana (blunt, bud, dope, grass, joint, pot and reefer), hairstyles (flattop, process, conk, do and Geri curl), coolness (copacetic, fresh, funky, groovy, hip, swinging and solid) and white people (Chuck, grey, honky, Mr. Charlie, ofay, peckawood, The Man and whitey).