It’s 4:00p.m. I just got back home from walking the West Indian Day Parade. There are still many hours left before the parade ends. For those who don’t know, it is the one day in the year where Caribbean-Americans come out in droves (over three million strong) and play mas, party, eat, drink, play their music, sing, dance and celebrate their cultural and other heritages. It is always spectacular. This year was no different.
I marched with the Ed Towns contingent. The congressman always brings an entourage to the parade, out of his love and respect for the Caribbean-American community. Poor Ed; it appears that he can hardly dance to the calypso, reggae and soca music. He needs to stay in his day job, because he wouldn’t be able to cut it as a calypsonian or a dancer. So please vote to re-elect him to Congress. I am going to endorse him later this week.
His son (assembly member Darryl Towns) seems to have gotten the non-dancing genes from his dad. He marched: he didn’t dance/LOL. But they both appeared to have enjoyed themselves, while surrounded by about fifty people or so. Jennifer James -a potential council candidate next year- was included in this entourage. I also saw Trinidad-born political operative Jennifer Joseph, who appeared to be walking with another Trinidad-born person: union leader Roger Toussaint (TWU). Interestingly enough I introduced myself to Toussaint in Denver -while he was placed with the New York delegation at the convention. I don’t think he remembered me/lol; and that’s understandable -given the many who introduce themselves to him over the course of any week.
I saw bands from many politicians: Senator Charles “Chuck” Schumer, District Attorney Charles Hynes, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, State Senator Eric Adams, and NYC Councilmember Kendall Stewart. I didn’t se the band with District Leader candidate Walter Moseley (57AD), but I saw his flyers strewn on the ground. I saw many Simcha Felder flyers and also a few members of his contingent in their yellow tee-shirts, strolling back down the parkway after marching (I presume). He was supposed to have marched with Mayor Bloomberg. The mayor endorsed councilmember Felder in that tight senate race (21SD) against both state senator Kevin Parker and councilmember Dr. Kendall Stewart.
Attorney Cenceria Edwards (56th AD challenger) was supposedly bringing a band later on today; and so too many others. Candidate Kenneth Evans told me that he would pass through the parade at some point late in the afternoon. I am sure many other incumbents and also some insurgents, will be paying their respects before the day is over.
I didn’t see the band with Marty Markowitz (Boro Prez), but I did see flyers all over the parkway for his former deputy Yvonne Graham. Ms. Graham is running to replace Marty next year, and was supposed to have brought a marching band very early (first or second) up the parkway, while marching with Marty. This Jamaican-born woman is hoping to become the first female (and first Caribbean-American) to win this position. Speaking of Marty Markowitz; his name came up a lot in Denver. He has a lot of people on edge as he tries to decide whether to run for mayor or public advocate. Many players are concerned since Marty’s poll numbers a have been consistently good (and surprising to many). To think that when I wrote my columns predicting this, some detractors thought I was a fool. Well; maybe I am: an educated fool from an ivy-league school/LOL.
On my way back down the parkway I ran into a small band with Inez Barron (the wife of councilmember Charles Barron) and Kevin Powell who is challenging Ed Towns. Charles and Inez have chosen to support this serial woman-beater (Powell) over the incumbent (Ed Towns). This is the kind of judgment you can expect from elected wannabee-fools. When I tried to secure an interview (in fact just a few comments) from Mr. Barron, concerning his wife’s current primary race -something I wanted to share with my blog readers- he chose to disrespect me right there and then. So now I will make this announcement to the world: that unless he apologizes to me, I will declare war on his monkey ass.
Mr. Barron has been talking about running for Boro Prez for almost two years now, and he has almost two thousand dollars (only) raised: what a fucking joke. This egomaniac and/or megalomaniac (take your choice), who if not for me, would be still rabble rousing and chasing the ambulances of police-brutality victims, instead of being an elected official; someone who I almost single handedly got elected to public office; this friggin ingrate; this walking blob of protoplasmic ingratitude, tried to diminish me as a journalist today. He will rue this day unless he apologizes.
Instead of responding to my questions about his wife’s race, he refused. He started talking some stupid shit like he wanted to rumble. I should have slapped him in the face right there, if only for my mental health (forget my manhood/lol). Fortunately for him I have left those wild days behind, in my earlier youth. I have grown up Charles: it is time you do too. You are slowly working your way to becoming an asshole; do keep it up bro. All you could have said to my question was: “well; we are confident of victory”. Now, how difficult would that have been?
This is the same Charles Barron who refused to shake the hands of one of his wife’s opponents, at a candidate debate (forum) recently. The candidate whose hands Charles refused to shake was Kenneth Evans. Mr. Evans ran Baron’s petition-effort for his successful 2001 race: pro-bono. He had supported Barron from 1996 thru 2002. Another thing I will tell both Charles and Inez Barron: GOD DOES’T LIKE UGLY (WATCH).
Charles Baron loves to tell people that he doesn’t read my blog; just as many other electeds also love to say. The truth is they all lie. They read it; nearly all of them. You want to know how I am sure that they all read my column: DENVER. Yes; Denver, Colorado. That city in that state, proved to me, that many (if not most) of these elected officials, read my column with a certain fixation.
When I got to Denver, I was paid so many compliments for my writings on these websites (“Room Eight” and “Daily Gotham”/especially), that nearly everyone wanted my card. I didn’t have one. So I scrambled to Kinkos on the first morning and quickly created a cheap card; by the end of the convention I had given out dozens.
From members of congressional delegations to state senators, from borough presidents to county leaders, from assembly members to city council members, from district leaders to party activists, from chiefs of staff to chief go-fers; they all told me to my face: how much they enjoyed reading what I wrote. From New York City to New York State, from all over the country in fact, people expressed immense approval with what I have been doing on the blogs for over three years now. That first night I had to use Preparation-H on my ego, to keep it from growing any further.
The last time I asked my editor (Gur Tsbar of Room Eight New York Politics/www.r8ny.com) to give me some kind of scientific estimate of our daily readership, he said that we get about eight thousand virgin hits a day. Next, the only other editor of the site (Ben Smith/ Politico) later said, that after the problem with Room8 and the Bronx District Attorney (Johnson), readership jumped a bit beyond that number. Eventually I believe that we will get to 100 thousand hits a week, if the quality of our product improves -but this is still a great big challenge folks; a great big challenge. There are so many things that we will have to do to attract more readers it isn’t funny; and it includes recruiting more writers: both young and old.
Given my experiences over the past few years, where whenever I go to some political event or the other, I find so many folks who claim to read my columns on these here blogs, I am left to believe that my audience is far wider than many would claim. Assemblyman Nick Perry and State Senator Bill Perkins have told me that people e-mail my columns to them sometimes. Assemblyman Benjamin (Bronx) also said that he is an avid reader. Plus I have people like Senator Eric Adams on my e-mail list. Even Congressman Anthony Weiner and Boro Prez Scott Stringer claim to be my fans. Trust me when I say that while the list from Denver is long, wide and varied, the compliments are even longer, wider, more varied and sometimes real sharp/lol. They love my sources; they want me to name some/LOL. In Denver, I found a woman (a PhD. candidate in Sociology) who wants to run against Tish James next year; her name is Wendy Washington. That was a riot; especially since Tish went out of her way not to recognize me -while we were both in Denver/lol. Even senator Kevin Parker said hello/lol.
Now, I know that some of the many detractors I have on these sites will come up and try to discredit all this, with some of their usual “bs” in the comment section (thread) of this column, so I saved this lil anecdote for last. It is about Howard Wolfson – Senator Hillary Clinton’s communications chief and top spokesperson. I could only hope that if the time comes (if needed), Mr. Wolfson can verify all this.
Back in the year 2000, I was running for district leader in the 42nd AD, Brooklyn. Lori Knipel -the female district leader in the adjoining 44thAD- held a forum for candidates running for office that year, sponsored by one of her many political clubs. Howard Wolfson represented Hillary Clinton; I represented myself at that forum. It was the first time I met him. Then backstage of the convention last Thursday -the night of Barack Obama’s acceptance- I ran into Howard again. I reminded him of who I was, and where we had met before; he vaguely remembered the event.
What he proceeded to say left me stunned even to this day. Howard Wolfson said that not only does he read and enjoy my columns, but he also thought that my writings on the presidential primary race were the best he had read. He took one of my cards and promised to call me at some point in the future. Then today I saw him make a statement that has earned my respect ten fold. He basically said that he was too caught up in the “contest” between the Clinton and Obama campaigns, to objectively look at Barack Obama as a candidate -throughout the heat of the battle (so to speak). He also said that after the acceptance speech he can now better appreciate what so many voters saw in this candidate. It was as honest as any high priced political advocate could get. Howard Wolfson has now regained my respect as a political operative.
Friday night I returned from Denver and decided to do two quick columns the next morning. The one where I said I felt like a fish out of water (at times at the convention), has drawn some heat (through e-mails). It seems that some electeds are angry at me (again), since I didn’t name the electeds I was not referring to, relative to the column. Look, I will get around to naming some of those people eventually, for now take only these nuggets.
Senator Eric Adams has been an activist for a long long time: I respect that immensely. I also respect Charles Barron’s activism (not his judgment and decision making though); so too Yvette Clarke’s, her mother Una’s, and Nick Perry’s (and sometimes their judgment and decision making is also suspect). Una, Yvette and Nick were involved with their communities long before getting elected. The same can be said for congressman Ed Towns and Councilmember Kendall Stewart. I come from a place where political involvement, community activism and socially engaging your hood -even if only in your block or tenant’s association- is something I respect in people: long before they are elected to office. However, that doesn’t mean I won’t critique them if I think they are doing crap.
I hold all electeds to the same high standards, whether they are white, black, Hispanic, Asian, or of any other race, ethnicity, religion or nationality. I usually write about the black ones mainly, and that is because I generally operate in trenches of the areas where the population is predominantly black.
Stay tuned-in folks. To all my newly-found fans: ENJOY. To all my detractors: GO TO HELL.