A review of Keith Thomas Walker’s ‘Dripping Chocolate’

Keith Thomas Walker’s Dripping Chocolate is a romantic tale with an urban twist.  The characters are not your usual upper crust lovers living fantastic lives in ideal settings coping with a complex complicated love.  The characters are true to form working class single parents making it in the world.  Nicole, a mother of three, works in a call center where her coworker girlfriends make up her supportive social circle.  Charles Dwayne Hester is only months out of the joint taking on the challenges of an ex-con seeking employment while resisting the street’s lucrative drug hustle.  Determined to go “legit” Charles is forced to rely on his money making assets, a handsome face and a well endowed muscular body.  Charles is reluctantly drawn into stripping because of his desire to be a good father and the responsibility of two kids and twice the baby mama drama.

The story opens with Nicole—not without her own baby daddy drama–coming to the realization that her recent relationship with Byron isn’t working.  He’s controlling and jealous and as advised by her girlfriends potentially dangerous.  She breaks it off but Byron can’t seem to take go for an answer.  To celebrate her 29^th birthday girlfriends treat Nicole to a night out at Peeping Jane, a male strip club.  Nicole shuns the idea of male strippers.  Exciting and easy on the eyes she considers them undesirable and full of no class baggage.

Enters Dripping Chocolate his first night on the job stripping; learning the ropes and making plenty of money.  Nicole gets a special dance and the encounter remains engrained in her memory.  Shortly thereafter she bumps into Dripping Chocolate aka Charles at the Walmart while both are shopping for their respective sons.  Her new perception of Dripping Chocolate as a responsible father dramatically changes Nicole’s first impression.

With cold feet she resists his overtures while considering her girlfriends’ conflicting advice.  Nevertheless she dives into irresistible waters, but soon finds swimming in the budding romance a challenge.  The plot thickens with heightened conflict when Charles’ stripping becomes the elephant in room.

Conflict is the key to Keith Thomas Walker’s string of successful novels.  The author is a master of what literary agent Donald Maass calls micro-tension, the literary device designed to keep readers turning pages.  While Dripping Chocolate is a romance it’s no fantasy dream but chocked with common real life urban struggles.  Through sublime dialogue Walker’s characters jump off the page vivid and real.   In great writing the plot is layered with conflicting relationships taken to dramatic heights.  I highly recommend Dripping Chocolate.

You can listen to my in depth interview with the author on my blog EditorialIndependence.com.

Surviving Cancer: keeping laughter and faith in high gear

Having never met Fred Evans face to face, I know we share one degree of separation.  Beyond the fact he graduated from my beloved alma mater three months before I entered, reading his book I immediately felt a connection like the lifelong buddy down the street.  That connection came personified and magnified in Surviving Cancer:  Keeping Laughter and Faith in High Gear.  Fred Evans chronicles his experience coping and overcoming a life threatening health crisis in a way so deeply personal and endearing, readers will find themselves laughing, crying, and comforted by his words.

It is a must read particularly for those facing similar circumstances, patients, caregivers and relatives.  And let’s face it, few of us will go through this life without knowing someone who has or will battle the dreaded disease.   In Fred’s case it was prostate cancer.  Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not die from it, and in fact, more than 2.5 million men in the United States who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point are still alive today.

However, the statistics among African American men are less favorable as they are more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage, and more than twice as likely to die of prostate cancer as white men. Prostate cancer occurs less often in Asian-American and Hispanic/Latino men than in non-Hispanic whites. The reasons for these racial and ethnic differences are not clear.

Fred Evans beat the odds.  In his business career, Fred worked for 30 years in the financial division of Eli Lilly and Company, a global pharmaceutical company. For 15 of those years he served as a Department Head.  During his career he worked on the corporate audit staff which included international audits in England, Spain, Switzerland, Venezuela, and Brazil.  Additionally, he served as the Financial Analyst for Eli Lilly affiliates in Argentina and Chile. It is perhaps his avocation as an avid cyclist that brings him the greatest satisfaction.  Much to his credit it also figured prominently in the battle providing a physical armor of stamina and strength necessary for fighting the disease as well as a support network sustaining his mind, body, and spirit.

The role of friends and family cannot be overestimated.  Fred has the benefit of a loving caring wife, Linda, his once nursery school classmate, and high school as well as college sweetheart.  He calls her his angel and she is right there beside him on every turn of the journey. Fred would endure the full cancer fighting strategy of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and hormone therapy.  There would be many physical challenges and side effects from uncontrollable hiccups, the chills, farting, and fatigue to peeing hot sauce.  Fred, like a well conditioned warrior, soldiered through it all with an athletic endurance acquired through his cycling.  His love of cycling plays a big part in his life.  He served as a past President of the Central Indiana Bicycling Association having cycled over 170,000 miles.

Perhaps the greatest component of his journey and conquest is the state of grace that carries him through it all.  Fred Evans shares the travails of his illness and recovery with ease and an incredible sense of faith and humor that makes this book an inspirational companion not just to those facing the battle but to their partners, friends, relatives, and lovers. The conversational tone is friendly and from the heart much like talking to a close friend—my buddy down the street.  Surviving Cancer:  Keeping Laughter and Faith in High Gear inspires so much hope and with five stars I recommend it highly.

A review of The Master

Freddie Quell is a drunken sailor with a combat related stress disorder and a drinking problem played by Joaquin Phoenix.  He returns from World War II after a stint in the South Pacific unable to hold down a steady job drifting on a course of self destruction.  He washes up on a boat sailing from San Francisco to New York under the direction of Lancaster Dodd founder of the Cause a sci-fi cult doctrine espousing time travel back to former lives to cure current ills.  The character Lancaster Dodd was inspired by and loosely modeled after Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.  While The Master is supposedly Quells story Dodd’s equally compelling biography competes for top billing.

Dodd seems to believe he and Freddie Quell share a past and manages to endear himself to the misfit.  While Quell is initially skeptical of the charismatic Dodd’s teachings he remains open and submits to a “Processing” a first step analyses.  The Cause “process” is eerily similar the Scientology Dianetics, L Ron Hubbard’s belief that individuals can free themselves of mental disorders and phobias by facing the traumatic incidents or “engrams” that block one’s mind.  Quell grows into a believer indeed a Dodd protector and bodyguard until the son Val Dodd (played by Jesse Plemons) exposes his father as a fraud.  Dodd sets out to cure Quell of his alcoholism or perhaps more to brain wash in an attempt to gain complete submission to the Cause.

Freddie Quells passes time as a member of the cult family but his manner and actions come into frequent conflict with others.  Quell’s loyalty to Dodd seems conflicted despite his violent defense of the crackpot.  Wracked by the memories of a youthful romance Quell finally realizes Dodd is con-man and stages his escape from Dodd’s hold.  He participates in a motorcycle game driving off into the Arizona sunset failing to return.  Years later Dodd tracks Quell down from his newly established London school and beckons Quell to join him.  Upon arrival Dodd as The Master demands Quell’s complete submission to the Cause.  The film climaxes with two men competing free wills clashing before departing.

It’s a complex surreal tale with Quell’s sexual libido frequently surfacing.  The cinematography, costumes and sets are superbly and amazingly authentic and true to the 1950s era.

The Master was written, directed, and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson.  He has written and directed six feature films: Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), and There Will Be Blood (2007). He has been nominated for five Academy Awards, There Will Be Blood for Best Achievement in Directing, Best Motion Picture of the Year, and Best Adapted Screenplay; Magnolia for Best Original Screenplay; and Boogie Nights for Best Original Screenplay. Anderson has been hailed as being “one of the most exciting talents to come along in years” and “among the supreme talents of today.”  The Master had its premiere at the 69th Venice International Film Festival.  Anderson compared Phoenix’s commitment to that of Daniel Day-Lewis for his level of concentration stating that Phoenix got into character and stayed there for three months.

This is the first film of 2012 receiving Oscar buzz due a large part to the Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Both may contend for Oscars as best actor and best supporting actor.

Romeney Keeps Digging

Poet and hip hop artist MV hits his mark

Michael Victor Whatley, Jr., also known as MV, a rising poet, hip hop artist and playwright, was recently on the streets selling advanced copies of his self- published book of poetry Trying To Be Grown and caught the attention of Washington Post reporter Peter Hermann.  Profiled as a curios oddity, an “out of the ghetto” success story, the Post headline touted Former D.C. rec-league star turns to poetry to escape urban neighborhood and crime.  It is debatable whether MV’s biography represents an escape, moreover it’s a narrative illustrating a young man rising above environment discovering his talent and building upon it with self-reliance and discipline.

A DC native MV is a Speech and Theater major entering his senior year at Tennessee State University in Nashville.  He is one of many fortunate young men who thrive despite the adversity and crippling influences associated with growing up in the inner city.  Like most young men MV was drawn to sports hanging out at the Rosedale rec where he earned a reputation as an accomplished athlete.  At the same he was developing another interest in the written word.  He credits football with distracting him from being sucked into the street life and the neighborhood drug trade. Thanks to his aunt, grandmother and vigilant parental guidance that other interest ultimately held sway over his life and future.

At age 21 MV stands 5’7’, 125 pounds with a slight build, a brilliant smile, inquisitive eyes, and a gregarious and engaging personality all of which makes him more suitable for the stage than grid iron.  While his brief biography may be of interest it is his growing body of compelling work that deserves more scrutiny.  It reveals the essence of MV going about the business of an artist mastering his craft.  He speaks of the influences of Mos Def who rose from hip hop to stage and screen and a particular affinity for the most notable and influential rapper Nas.  MV’s book of poems Trying to Be Grown captures the experience of the young urban black male coming of age and undergoing the sometimes perilous transformation into manhood.  He speaks of loneliness, love and lust while trying to find his place in the world.  His poetic voice is tender and vulnerable at times introverted and deeply personal alternating to the outspoken and combative critical of the world around him.

Like poetry his music captures in form and feeling the hip hop genre’s elements of story-telling, subject matter, creativity, word play, metaphors, and delivery.  At this stage in his development–a raw talent undergoing maturation he’s moving towards mastering the art form.  While his work is sometimes punctuated with the raw underground qualities of the profane and the sexually explicit he is evolving toward a more artistic and sublime sound.  That evolution is evidenced on his Youtube channel mikemvw21.  Rhythmic hypnotic sounds abound on his new mixed tape titled Vol. 7.  Pride scheduled to drop September 7^th at Datpiff.com.  Already a number of singles are generating buzz including Desperately Waiting,  On my job, and Makes a song.  Trying to Be Grown is also scheduled to become available on Amazon September 7th.  MV has already attracted the attention of some major recording labels and hopes to break out in the near feature.  Meanwhile his play The Good Die Young expects will be staged by a university troupe this academic year.

With entrepreneurial hustle MV is following in the foot steps and tradition of great Black poets like the young playwright and poet Langston Hughes who made his mark self-publishing and self peddling his works as well.  MV is enthusiastically taking on the challenge of marketing and building a platform necessary for today’s digital market.

MV returned to his old neighborhood this summer greeted like a hometown celebrity by proud friends and family.  And to hear him talk, his native Rosedale and DC are forever with him–having never escaped, but away only a sabbatical.

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