10 Books 10 Decades has a new logo & new merch! (Nothing goes better with a 10 Books 10 Decades Challenge than some new merch!)
10 Things I Wrote About You also has a new logo! (I’ll give y’all merch for that if you want it as well!)
Releasing this merch has been a piece of a consistent theme that defined my life this week: doing the things that scare me. The things that scare me are the things where I’ve told myself “I don’t belong here,” or “They wouldn’t take someone like me seriously because I don’t have this notch on my belt, or because I don’t speak and/or look a certain way.” Self-sabotaging bullshit in other words.
The mental rewards of this confrontation with fear have been fruitful & I plan to continue this confrontation so these same mental rewards can be reaped physically.
Let this be a reminder, invitation, and message for you to confront your fears so you can share these thrills with me.
Here are the 10 Things I Wrote About You.
Jamie Fox Deserves A Wider Frame of Reference
One thing I’ve been reminded of in the past is that “they killed Jesus”. Why have I and a ton of other people I know been reminded of this? Because we want to let each other know to watch our backs. The person you’re related to, your chosen family, your significant other who you want to spend the rest of your life with, the neighborhood you give back to, whoever they are, they are capable and flawed, so they may decide to stab you in the back one day.
A wider frame of reference would lead to less false assumptions.
Tides Rolling in a New Direction
One of the most profitable industries that's ever existed is the industry of Black pain and trauma. It’s so profitable, in part, because it tends to go viral. With the “Alabama Riverfront Brawl” we saw the rolling of a new tide. The tide that causes Black people kicking some ass to go viral. Those white folks probably thought this was just another day where they were going to get away with terrorizing some Black folks. Turns out they got faded into the water by Chairiet Tubman. May August 6th be to them what they hope January 6th is to us.
Andre Ward S.O.G. Documentary
Floyd Mayweather Jr. was the face of boxing for a long time. Money Mayweather fought his way to a 50-0 record and retired from boxing before boxing could retire him.
Andre Ward is another fighter of the Money Mayweather Era who went undefeated (32-0) and retired from boxing before boxing could retire him. His documentary S.O.G. (Son of God): The Book of Ward shows his Oakland upbringing, his Olympic level trials and tribulations in and out the ring. I came away from S.O.G. with a new YouTube boxing rabbithole to fall into, among other things.
Johnny Football
Netflix has their variation of ESPN’s 30 for 30 and it's called Untold. Their latest iteration of Untold is called Johnny Football and it was pretty good. The first 75-85% went at a really good pace, and had some really cool revelations and insight into how Johnny Manziel became Johnny Football at Texas A&M, and the vast privilege that afforded him. The ending, however, seemed a little too abrupt. Maybe they did a biographical structure to imitate the abrupt end of his career in the NFL? It should have been maybe 5-10 mins longer.
Winning Time
Winning Time, the fictional adaptation of Jeff Pearlman’s nonfiction book Showtime, is one of my favorite shows on TV. Following the journey of the Los Angeles Lakers during the 1980s—where they went to 8 of 10 NBA Finals and won 5—is a boatload of fun. Season 2 starts off with a flash forward to the 1984 NBA Finals where the Lakers steal a game in the Boston Garden, then they flashback to the summer of 1980 where the Lakers are fresh off of a championship run.
I hope you all like shenanigans because this season promises many.
NBA Opening Night & Christmas Day Games
Basketball becoming a sport that receives the year round media coverage is one of my favorite things that’s ever happened in my life. That also means basketball will always have an entry in 10 Things.
The NBA’s Opening Night and Christmas games were released, successfully building the anticipation that the league intended to build. The defending champion Denver Nuggets host the Lakers on opening night and the New York Knicks still find themselves hosting a Christmas game.
One day we will have to have a conversation about the New York Knicks, the Dallas Cowboys and the power of branding.
The Chi
The Chi is back for Season 6, and I am back with them despite the hard times I have given this show. A rewarding aspect about The Chi is seeing how much three of its stars—Alex R. Hibbert, Shamon Brown Jr., and Michael Epps—have grown over the years. When you see them now you see young men, but in The Chi’s beginnings they were little boys. As a viewer you may dare to think that you’ve raised them with your viewership, but it’s more fitting, and fun, to say that we have grown alongside them.
American Fiction
I cannot believe that I didn’t know that Percival Everett’s Erasure is being adapted for film! What the hell? And no one told me! Some friends y’all are.
The movie is directed by Cord Jefferson and stars Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison. It also has a star studded cast which includes, among others, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae & Sterling K. Jackson!
Paramount Global finally sold Simon & Schuster to KKR, a private equity firm. The Justice Department blocked Penguin Random House from buying S&S last year in part because it would have given PRH over 50% of the United States Publishing market share, but some are concerned about S&S having a private equity firm as their owner due to concerns of prioritizing profits over literature.
This is the book BUSINESS so profits will certainly be central, but hopefully KKR will be open to S&S using creativity and innovation as a way to make profits in a creative industry.
Barack Obama’s LinkedIn
I follow ONE37pm on Instagram and they made me aware that Barack Obama has a LinkedIn. He’s a human just like us, so of course he would have a LinkedIn, right, but ONE37 made me laugh at the possibility of an employer questioning Obama for a supposed gap in his employment history.
I look forward to the day when LinkedIn and other resumes are a thing of the past for me like they surely are for Barack (& Michelle), because Lord knows filling out resumes and cover letters and submitting them for rejection after rejection is for the birds.
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The thing with the Erasure movie is that the novel still didn’t approach how much I loved The Trees and how much I think The Trees is one of the best novels --- BUT very very oddly, I feel like with the cast of American Fiction - I’ll like the movie more than the novel which has never happened ever (AND I don’t even barely ever watch movies, like ever at all but I’m so excited for this one. Lol many ironies here.)
Need to read Erasure asap. I can’t believe they didn’t tell you.
The thing with the Erasure movie is that the novel still didn’t approach how much I loved The Trees and how much I think The Trees is one of the best novels --- BUT very very oddly, I feel like with the cast of American Fiction - I’ll like the movie more than the novel which has never happened ever (AND I don’t even barely ever watch movies, like ever at all but I’m so excited for this one. Lol many ironies here.)