The musings of a madman...

On this day in 1932, the patent for the automatic gearshift was secured by a black man in San Francisco named Richard Spikes. No one seems to know anything about Richard, but I damn sure know enough about automatic transmissions to know that they seemed to have stopped informing most new drivers how to changed their own damned gears. What we DO know is that he is also the inventor of those turn signals for which none of us can now HAND signal our intentions when the lights fail. In all, 10 items were developed or directly patented by Spikes, but the most lastingly important is the one that allows lazy women a free hand to hold their cell phone as they run me off the road in their Expeditions.

As a North Carolina resident/native and Los Angeles Lakers fan, I would be wrong to let James Worthy's birthday pass without mention... We know James' pedigree... NCAA Champion at the University of North Carolina. 3-time NBA Champion with the Lakers 1-time NBA Finals MVP As the top-name role player on the Showtime Lakers, we can argue until we're blue in the face that he rode Jordan into the NBA from Carolina, then Magic and Kareem to the NBA hall of fame. I do not subscribe to that line of thinking, if only for the consistency with which James played, even if he always was an "assistant pimp." Career averages of 17.6pts, 5.5 rebounds and 3 assists on a team that features top scoring (Kareem) and assists (Magic) talents suggests that something was very right with his game to me. Anyway... I do enough basketball talk over on Reading & Writing is for Dumb People , so let us stop short of taking this post there... Instead, let's bid James Worthy the happy bir

It is often assumed that I am punctual just out of habit, and find it odd that I call it heredity... One habit I took from my granddaddy - alcoholism notwithstanding - is that being late or absent irks the fuck out of me. Extenuating circumstances are extenuating circumstances, and they continue to exist as a caveat to never say never, but damned if I am habitually late or out, even if I am clear on the signs shown that my employer hates my guts... When I CAN get here, I get here, and on time. I have been working since I was 16, and looking back over my history, I have missed more time to… Deaths in the family (3 in the whole of 16 years) Deaths of dogs (just couldn’t make myself want to go) Weather (one missed day and a bit of late time for travel complexities) Traffic (yes, sitting in the car on I-85 counts) 9/11 (building closed 2 hours into my shift) Car trouble (much less than you might think, considering I have never owned a car newer than 6 ye

No, I am not telling you that Muhammad Ali has died... I am simply saying that this marks the date of his "official" conversion to Islam. Regardless of your views on religion, be it organized, non-organized, cults or just ANTI, you have to respect the strength of a public figure willing to stick their necks out for what they believe. This is ESPECIALLY so when that decision can put their wellbeing, safety and ability to continue to sustain in peril. That said, even though I am not Muslim, I can give all the respect I can muster to the champ for this leap of faith. ESPECIALLY so when considering the heat he took for it (and his actions resulting from it) in the years that immediately followed. Sure, I COULD have done Ali/Liston yesterday, but out of respect for the champ, I decided that THIS date is probably a bigger deal to him than that one ever was.

I COULD have done Ali/Liston from 25 years prior, but you will see why I did not do that tomorrow. There is NO secret that (pre-Buster Douglas screwjob/fake rape charge) Mike Tyson was my favorite boxer EVER ... On today's date in 1989, in the midst of a failing marriage he should not have been in and ahead of the personal shit that would derail his whole career, Mike Tyson fought Frank Bruno in a fight that represented the first time I had ever seen Mike even remotely STUNNED in a fight. Alas... ... that thing they say about fool's gold... 5th round knockout, Michael Gerard Tyson victorious after the ref stopped the fight while Tyson beat mercilessly on a laying-on-the-ropes Bruno. 9-year-old-Phlip was happy.

This one is a direct play on yesterday's post, and definitely one of those asshole moves of mine as it relates to the topic of Black History Month. As you read this, I more than likely have a pair of Nikes on my feet. The same can be said for EVERY black dude I have seen this week. The same can be said for the dude I mentioned on the 9th and 17th, considering the company made him more rich than basketball probably did directly. Anyway, what's the point? Nike was started by a certain Philip Knight, and today is HIS 73rd birthday. Don't you just LOVE stereotypes? Somewhere, RIGHT NOW, in America all at once, there is a black kid being beaten up for his Nike Airs, and an African in a flea market selling a bootleg pair to someone for $45 bucks. In my demented mind, these combined facts make the founder and majority owner of the company relevant to a series of Black History Month posts... Ain't that crazy? Anyway... I can't hate or judge, as I am enjoying the comfort and

You know, when I undertook this as a project, I had no idea how many people/events we actually WERE made to hear/read about in school actually WERE born DURING Black History Month. But... Today is W.E.B. Du Bois' birthday. W.E.B. standing for William Edward Burghardt. Look, we know about him, and if we don't, Google is a good friend of ours... Pan Africanist First Black Doctorate Graduate of Harvard Headed the NAACP when they mattered were more necessary Author Possessor of a bad-fucking-ass mustache and a great many more important things... I will have a thought of unearthing my copy of the book that titles this post as a celebration of the day, but don't hold me to that.

And by "doctor," I mean Dr. J, Julius Irving. The dude who influenced Michael Jordan to become Michael Jordan. Look, there is little I can say about the man that has not been said in his time on the planet, so I will let a highlight video tell it this time. Happy born date to the great doc!

If you're familiar with Spike Lee movies, you know what the title of this one refers to. If you're not, I will tell you that was what was yelled out just before Malcolm X was gunned down on 02/21/1965. Yes, Malcolm was on the stage at a meeting speaking when a disturbance broke out, which opened the floor for someone to step right in and shoot him with a sawed-off, then two more with handguns made sure the job was done… Onlookers grabbed and beat on one of the shooters, but the others got away. Three people were charged and arrested, one at the scene and two via eyewitness accounts. The two fingered by witnesses maintain innocence, but the one who was clearly guilty refused to name his co-defendants, so all did time. All have since been paroled or otherwise released as of last year. Reasons for WHY he was killed remain varied and largely will see the aisle divided several directions based on race, religious affiliations (up to and including s

Okay, I will be serious(ish) from here on... On today’s date in 1895 at the age of about 78 – the birth dates of blacks were not recorded back then – Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, passed away in Washington DC. His life, as we all learned, served as a counter to the assumptions about black intellect that still dog us to this day (thanks, Gucci Mane fans!). That said, there is no need for me to delve deeply into the gritty details of what we know of his life. Even a perfunctory Google search will give you ALL you need to know about the life of Frederick Douglass. Or Wikipedia , if you’re feeling lazy. What I am here to do more than anything is to introduce you to why we should not forget the chance to celebrate the life of those who have helped to drive us to where we are, sometimes in spite of ourselves. Again, not here to give super-lengthy posts to be plagiarized by one of your lazy-fucking children in years to come, I will stop her