How Are We Feeling About AI?

 

So I've been on the anti-AI train for a while, mainly because the way it works now, it basically steals the work of creatives in order to produce just like...struggle versions of their work and suits, who know nothing about creative work, use AI to cut costs regardless of the quality of the work.

So just as someone who values quality, I've not really thought of it as a good thing. But recently, most of the programs that I use for creating designs such as Canva and even Microsoft, have come up with AI options for generating images.

Before, when I was creating a social media post or book cover, I'd search images for pics I could use but then, the other day I thought, what if I generated the image? After all, it's not as if I would have used an artist before, and this is an opportunity to get exactly what I wanted...I thought.

But surprisingly - or perhaps not - I found that it's just as difficult to generate what I want as it is to find it. Haitian Zombies? forget it. Mixed race couples? Da fuck? That's dangerous, no can do. African Gays? What? No.

So in conclusion, AI is just as unimaginative as the white suits who invented it. Creatives have nothing to worry about.

They have nothing on you.

Speaking of extremely creative and original work, In Search of Paradise is on discount. 

Have you copped it yet?

Book Sale In Search of Paradise

Occasionally as my skills get better, I like to improve aspects of my work where possible. I particularly love this new cover so I'm discounting my book by a lot to promote it. Please do buy for yourselves and your friends. It's that affordable.

Share this post and I just might buy YOU a copy. I want you to enjoy it. I know you will. So choose how you want to get it. Buy? Share? the choice is yours.

Christmas is around the corner after all.

Shades of Grey: the saga of Israel and Palestine

 I grew up watching South Africans fight for their freedom. They did some shit; burning people with tires in the middle of the street because they were identified as snitches is just one example. On the other hand, the Boers were busy beating people to death, right on TV because they dared to protest. They massacred students in that very famous massacre the year I was born. They detained people, from Nelson to Winnie to that Jewish guy you can watch in Live to Lead on Netflix. He lost his leg in a bombing in Malawi and when he woke up, he was terrified that the Boers had him. When he was told he was still with Frelimo but he lost his leg, he was relieved.

Can you even imagine the alternative if the loss of a leg fills you with relief?

The West called the South African freedom fighters, terrorists. Nelson Mandela was only removed from a terrorist watchlist in '94 or thereabouts when he was already the president of South Africa. It was only after the South African embassy in London was literally under siege (and it became less profitable to support it) that the beginning of dismantling apartheid in South Africa began. Now they all want to pretend that they were always huge supporters of Nelson Mandela and the ANC.

The narrative is the narrative until it's not.

That's why it's important not to wait for other people to tell you what to think. You must seek your own information and make up your own mind. 

The dichotomy of black and white, good and evil, is what trips people up I think. People think that if you fight back, using the same tactics as your oppressor, then you're not just as bad, you're worse than them. It's you, you're the problem, it's you.

Guys, it's all shades of grey. The meek might one day inherit the earth but they generally do not survive oppression or brutality.

They never give you alternatives for what you can do to mitigate this oppression - have you noticed? Every alternative is wrong. 

We've seen this with Black Lives Matter too. 

When it comes to Palestine though, there seems to be an extra layer of dgaf that happens. People are dead-eyed in the face of gruesome pictures of Palestinian children, shot, bombed, beaten, brutalized in every way imaginable. Somehow, it's all fine. 

It's all okay. 

It's antisemitism if you protest. It means you hate Jews. You want Jews to be killed. 

Jews are the victims. Don't you see that?

Hitler killed six million Jews a century ago. How many Palestinians have Jews killed?

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.

I don't know how this is going to be resolved, but what I see is the Israeli government acting in bad faith. I see that they are the oppressors. And if there is to be any hope for humanity, we must all stand against this.

We in Danger, Girl...

 Okay, hear me out, this is going to be a long post with a lot of threads to connect. The world is ending and we're all just sitting on our hands. Here we go.

Let's start at the beginning and that's the Cold War where Russia essentially 'threw in the towel' right? Capitalism won...allegedly. So fast forward to 2020. Trump is the president of the United States. He's shown signs of being very pro-Russia and his fans of course are following behind like sheep.

Because it didn't matter that he was bending over for their supposed worst enemy. Just as long as he continued to discriminate against the coloreds. Then Byline Times today, posted this video:

Please watch to the end. It actually brings together a lot of the threads I was going to have to connect for you. Trump wins in 2016, right? Soon after or before this, Boris Johnson becomes PM of England and midwifes Brexit into existence. What is the result of these two things?

1. The rise of right-wing ideologies worldwide leading to social schisms that will be hard to heal. From that Marie le Pen chick in France to the Italians to the Germans - we saw the return of actual Nazis, increased hostility to colored folk, all of that. What did that lead to?

Well, look at England now. It's practically a failed state. America is a third-world country. France is on fire. They're killing homeless and sick people in CANADA. The first world is a mess. 

But that wasn't the only consequence.

2. Attack on truth. Thanks to Trump and Cambridge Analytica nem, what is the truth became subjective. It would have been one thing if this was confined to one country but thanks to Twitter, it's easy for ideas to spread and many people (who should have known better) were subscribing to the notion that COVID isn't real and the vaccine is a trick. Now I could totally understand why black Americans would be wary. After all, the American medical field has used them time and again as guinea pigs. There was that time they injected black soldiers with syphilis to see how it progressed untreated. Then black women have been sterilized without their knowledge in many instances. But you, my African brother (and it was mostly men) what is your reason for believing that a vaccine is some sort of 5G, the gov'mint is watching you nonsense? There is no excuse for you. 

Why are men so gullible?

I digress.

Speaking of Africa, let's take a look at what neocolonialism is doing. While the US and the UK, France as well, are doing their best to maintain their footprint, the colonized are fighting back. Unfortunately, this isn't all self-motivated. There are puppets, with strings, calling the shots. Just look at what's happening in Niger this week. They've thrown the French out but they're busy raising Russian flags. The French are fighting back of course, joined by none other than the US. When you hear Nigeria is cutting off power to Niger, who is pulling those strings? Americans? I doubt it's the UK. My point is, change is happening right before our very eyes.

Russia, China, the Middle East (not Israel) are out here getting hands on African real estate. Did you see the CNN documentary which showed how much Russia has taken ownership of the Democratic Republic of Congo, possibly the most mineral-rich country in the world? UAE just offered to buy the port of Kenya for six billion dollars. You know that greedy man is going to take that deal. He knows nothing but avarice.

China has been giving loans to African governments for a few years now and what's the collateral? Land. 

Incidentally, just by the way, Africa seems to be the only continent not overtly affected by climate change. Yes, we have famine that is very manmade, but we're not experiencing extreme weather events like everyone else is. I'm even afraid to say so lest I jinx it.

Which brings us neatly to BRICS. This coalition of nations is trying to phase out the dollar as the world currency and replace it with gold. It is made up of Russia, China and the three biggest economies of South America, Asia, and Africa. 

Y'all seeing this?

I am not necessarily opposed to the removal of the dollar as the world currency. I simply fear the consequences. The devil you know etc. 

So we have the same players coming up over and over again, shaping world views, controlling world politics, and doing it in a very quiet, underhanded way. 

Where does it end?

It seems as if these people are trying to end geopolitical borders and have just blocks of places ruled by a particular supervillain named Putin, whatever the Chinese fellow is called, or Middle Eastern royal families.

I keep telling my son that we're already living in a dystopian future, we just haven't realized it yet. He tells me I'm a tin hat. But just look around you. Climate change is here. It's not pending anymore. Saudi Arabia is building 'The Line' a futuristic city straight out of Ready Player One, Elon Musk is trying to make Twitter a hub for misinformation (and who are his backers? A bunch of Saudis, Russians, and Chinese), see this article which connects the dots more beautifully than I ever could.

What's the endgame?

I think the endgame is what the endgame has always been with supervillains - to rule the world. Now the thing is, if they wanted to destroy themselves, that would be one thing. But I fear that just as what happened in the movie 2012; the 'survivors' will end up here, in Africa, pushing us aside and claiming that they bought the land from us so now it's theirs. They'll use words like conservancy to justify it, if downright theft does not suffice.

And then we'll end up living in the sewers with the rats which will grow fat from all the dead bodies they're gonna eat.

Yes! It's gruesome. Deal with it.

My son and I were actually talking about this and we brainstormed an entire video game based on this premise. Now all we need to do is create it. We're going to call it The Rat King.

I'd like to end on a positive, uplifting note but I see nothing but doom and gloom. So all I can do is wait to tell you...

I told you so.

Postscript: Just as a by the way, there's this tabloid journalist named Dan Wooton whose name I would never have known if he wasn't such a big Harry and Meghan hater. Anyway, last week a byline article came out chronicling his years of blackmail and extortion towards fellow journalists and other big-name individuals. This man was so protected that not one British newspaper printed the allegations. Isn't that interesting?

Kompromat.

That Keke Saga

 Last week was interesting; plot twists galore, discussions on boundaries, insecurity, and of course, Harry and Meghan dominated the twitter space. 

If you're still on facebook only, you might not know that Keke Palmer went to see Usher in concert, in Vegas. As he is wont to do with any celebrity who comes for his show, he serenaded her. There was hugging. There was dancing. 

Keke was wearing a black sheer dress atop a bodysuit, which showed off all her gorgeous new curves. 

While we were all cheesing and saying 'aww, she's really enjoying those motherhood curves' her baby daddy was eating sour grapes, gnashing his teeth and fisting his hand. After probably working himself up into a frothing rage, having watched the video for the fourth time, he proceeded to post this on twitter.

"Is she a mom, Darius? Is she? And you think she's unaware of that fact?"

At that point, it might have been passed off as a joke, a moment of weakness or stupidity. But no, Keke BD had to double down.

I'm not one for respectability politics. I'm sure I once was but that was a while ago and I don't remember it. I don't beleive in performing for the crowd which is what respectability politics is in a nutshell. I don't much subscribe to it because it comes with a heavy doze of hypocrisy. This same man who is trying to slut shame Keke also posted a pic of her in a leopard print one-piece, shaking her new ass. That same man also posted a pic of himself in his underwear.

So these standards and morals that he has are very selective.

This man was perfectly within his rights to be upset, to be jealous about Keke kiikiiing over Usher. But that was a conversation to be had in their house, in person, not blasted all over the internet for all of us to see. So you have to ask, what was he trying to do? Humiliate her? Did he think the internet would side with him - a man whose name nobody even bothered to find out - over Keke fucking Palmer?

Can we get serious for a minute?

Why are men so delusional?

Anyways...

I made a small observation. For about a day and a half, everyone was in accord that Keke BD was a fucking idiot in the wrong and Keke should dump his ass. But of course, the forces of evil rallied and the "It was Keke's fault" guys came out of the woodwork.

One thing I've noticed about these vultures is that they always have an angle. Hate is for profit. People hang around trying to come up with an angle to provoke outrage and then peddle that for clicks or whatever. 

Then there are those who literally go around looking for something to be mad about. 

Both of these kinds of people do not contribute positively to your mental health. Social media on it's own isn't poisonous. It's the tendency to focus on the negative that is.

Because of all this with Keke, an ex-girlfriend of Jonah Hill posted texts showing how controlling he was, using therapy language in a bid to control her. As a result, the entire twitterverse had an enlightening conversation on boundaries - what they are, what they aren't. 

As a last hurrah for twitter - if indeed it is dying - it was not bad.

Help Me Help You Get Books at a Discount

 

In my attempt to 'water the plants' that I have i.e. my books, here I am, reminding you all that Smashwords is having a sale this month. 

And because I know how y'all can't be arsed, here I am, making it easier for you to cop a book by upending your email or the email of whoever wants to get a copy onto this form and I will send the link and discount code of whatever book you want to buy.

Aside; *lowers voice* You should know that most of my erotica books are free this month. I see that some of you have found them (a lot of you. Like wah) but yeah. Follow the link if you don't want to go through me to get your steam on. Enjoy!

I know y'all can do with the escape. 

Just Water the Plants: This Post Is not About Plants

 

I've always thought of myself as someone with a black thumb, despite my family's farmer roots, I feared I couldn't keep a single plant alive.

This was supported by my various attempts to keep plants in a pot and also when I had an actual garden. I basically employed a gardener so I wouldn't kill everything. 

Now I have a few plants in pots on my balcony and one day, I woke up (after three-fifths of them had died) and resolved that I would do better when it came to tending to them.

I put an alarm on my phone to remember to water my plants.

That was it.

Just water the plants. Regularly.

I didn't always follow through even with an alarm. But I did find that with watering going from zero times to maybe even once a week, I was reversing the rapid decline of my balcony garden. I went to Diani for one week and made my son promise to water them every day.

He did.

And the plants that were left were flourishing.

Let's backtrack a bit.

So life has been hard right? Internally and externally. Shit has just been hitting the fan so much lately. So much so that I've even seen fit to overlook my feud with 'God' and started well...praying. 

Do you experience God?

That's not an original quote from me. It's from Children of God by Maria Doria Russell. Or maybe it's The Sparrow. Father Emilio Sandoz asks his caretaker that question. 

It wasn't a happy thing for him - to experience God. Clair Fraser from Outlander also experienced God. She called it having a moment of Grace. 

I did too. 

For me, it's been different. Usually, I get these...moments of Grace...in times of extreme stress when I don't know how to proceed. They could come in terms of a revelation, or some person telling me something that answers a question I've been pondering. It's all very...existential.

Anyway, it had gone away for a few years but once I started praying well, it came back. I look at it this way, I opened myself up to the possibility of receiving these messages again and the universe resumed talking to me.

So there I was, seeing those seeds sprouting green and healthy and I went huh, all they needed was constant watering.

Maybe I don't have a black thumb. Maybe...I've just been neglectful in the past.

So I'm trying this new/old thing where I'm watering my plants.

Well...I am actually watering my plants and they thriving thank you very much. But it was also a metaphor for many other things in my life.

My son.

He's been having a hard time of it and I was at a loss as to how to help him or even if I should. Think Eagles and their babies - should I drop him out of the nest and just see if he'll fly or...what? And I worried that maybe I took it for granted that he would be okay, that he'd figure it out, that he didn't need me. Then I worried that I was being a helicopter parent and he'd never learn to stand on his own two feet if I was there to solve all his problems for him.

Parenting is super hard guys.

Water the plants.

So I tried to do that. To be present, available if he called upon me, to provide positive reinforcement and trust that he would do the rest. 

It's hard to trust guys. Phew. It's so hard.

But that's where I am with that.

It's a constant battle but we move. 

My health.

Being in my forties, I don't know if my health is deteriorating or if this is just normal wear and tear. Anyway, at the moment, I have very high inflammation in my body and still searching for a cause. I'm also trying to get rid of the excess weight in my belly. 

It's a frustrating journey for lil old inconsistent me. But I'm trying to be consistent in 'watering these plants' which means doing some sort of workout as many days of the week that I can. I use Justin Agustin's site which has very gentle exercises which don't make you feel like literally dying when you think about doing them.

A great side effect is that when my son finds me working out, it motivates him to go to the gym and achieve one of his own goals. Going back to being a parent; the exercises I do are very gentle, but the way he sees it is that I am effortless in doing difficult exercises. I'm just like..." When will that pedestal you put me on sometimes, develop feet of clay?"

It's great guys. It's great. wonderful. 

So I'm taking my meds, seeing the doc when I'm supposed to, and making sure to work out regularly. We await the results. 

Water your plants...consistently. 

I'm failing to do that with my work though. I can't seem to keep a deadline to save my life these days. Twitter is a huge culprit. I spend too much time on there. It's an addiction at this point. But I'm trying to use the Focus app on my laptop and just trying. 

Of course, I know there's more than Twitter to blame here. I might be burnt out. The worry about everything else in my life isn't helping. Neither is the less than optimum health. So I know that once I've gotten those other things nailed, my work output will improve and my bruxism will disappear. 

We hope.

Sometimes even when you water the plants consistently, birds come and eat them, or slugs, or they get a disease...life happens.

So do your part and then leave it all to...God? The Universe? Everything? Whatever higher power you believe in. Just make sure you leave it all on the floor, no regrets.

If the plant still dies, at least you know you did everything that you could.

My Experience with Working With Different Races

 You know I'm perpetually online right?

Like...it's a problem. I'm beginning to suspect I might have ADHD. Not just because of the obsession with Twitter. There are other things too. My sensitivity to noise, the way I get confused if there is too much stimuli...lots of things. Anyway, this isn't about my tendency to self-diagnose...which...

Never mind. We were talking about being online and so that's where I get most of my interactions with strangers. So a few weeks ago, someone said on Twitter that working with Black Americans was basically her worst experience in terms of them wanting discounts and such. 

Of course, that was a generalization but I too have experienced the same thing. But not just with black Americans. Black people of various hues and origins; are always angling for free or near-free work from other black people. 

As I write this, I am speculating as to why that is and my conclusion isn't that it's not that black people are cheap - no. They just don't value the time and work of other black people. Internalized racism jumps out; our minds remain colonized. 

In my experience, and it saddens me to admit this, but of all the various clients I have had, I have worked best with white men followed by Asian women.

You think I like writing this? I don't. But the truth is that so long as you demonstrate your competence, white men (disclaimer: not Americans - have yet to work with an American man) will give you the work, expect you to do it, and then pay you promptly. The two Asian women I've worked with preferred a more collaborative process but let me take the lead as the 'expert'. They seem to take it as two groups just trying to survive white supremacy so let's see if we can get this money. I haven't worked with racist Asians but of course, they would not choose me to work for them anyway.

White women...

Brace yourself for at least one tantrum. They also want to tell you what to do even though they actually do not know anything. Like, nothing. Not even basic English. The number of times I've had to explain things that I thought were common knowledge...

Working with white women has taught me patience and I totally understand why black people were so happy to be working from home during the panini. They STAY looking for shit to blame you for.

White women working under men are conversely, the most polite people I've ever encountered. They're gentle, say please and thank you and is there any way I can help you? This is actually my favorite dynamic.

Black American women will call you "Queen" and ask for edits and re-dos and do everything they can to delay paying you. Black American men will ghost you if you let them, after asking for the work. Africans will ask for as little as they can pay you, ask you who you think you are, and become annoyed if you want to be paid commensurate rates as everyone else.

So there you have it. 

This is just my experience. My disclaimer is that it's not a blanket description of every one of whatever race. 

Do with this what you will.

Book Sale at Smashwords

 

Hello, Readers!

I’m excited to announce that my books, will be available as part of a promotion on Smashwords for the month of July as part of their Annual Summer/Winter Sale! This is a chance to get my book, along with books from many other great authors, at a discount so you can get right to reading.

You will find the promo here starting on July 1, so save the link here.

Please share this promo with friends and family. You can even forward this post to the avid readers in your life!

Thank you for your help and support!

Happy reading!

White People and the Culture of Exclusion

 I saw a tweet yesterday where a white girl posted her pic and said something like, "Twenty-one weeks pregnant. Trannies could never."

I stared at the tweet, and stared some more, trying to decipher what could possibly be the purpose of it. A whole-ass pregnant woman infecting her child with poisonous toxic vibes even before they have a chance to leave the womb. What chance does it have?

But then, it keeps hitting me in the face that this is a trend with the mayonnaise people. A black boy knocks on your door, and you shoot him. Kids are playing in a field NEAR your house, you chase them away and then shoot their mother dead when she comes to collect an iPad you essentially stole from them. Ajike Owens' children are left motherless because the white lady didn't like the black kids playing near her house.

Transphobia.

Like, I'm old enough to remember when the only transphobia I saw was men killing black trans women. It was an epidemic. Everyone agreed it was bad. Suddenly, the tide turned led by white women - trans women were stealing their identities...and stuff. Or something. I don't know. But now its a whole thing. Just another way they have to exclude people.

It's not just racial, this exclusion. Yesterday I saw a tweet where a white mother was complaining that her white kid had been barred from eating cake at a birthday party because the mom of the birthday kid did not count them as 'a friend'. They were playing in the same park. It was this one kid and a birthday party. Naturally, she was playing with the birthday party kids. But god forbid, she eat their cake. She wasn't one of them.

Don't get me wrong, people are within their rights to be mean. To be small-minded. To be all these things. But because they also feel that they are the default, the main character, the only ones who matter, they do try and make lives difficult for anyone else. And that is the problem.

The worst part though, is that the other white people who consider themselves to not be full of hate, do nothing to stop it. In fact, they'll tell you how the bigots just need love and understanding and they'll stop. 

Throw the entire race away.

Now watch this post be taken down or put behind a "sensitive" tag.

A trip from Diani Carrefour on a nduthi

I arrived in Diani late at night, and I hadn't done a lick of shopping because I didn't want to make my luggage even more heavy. I ended up sleeping at 4am so I woke up the next day at 5pm still feeling lazy as fuck. 

Luckily, my hosts had the numbers of some boda boda guys so I was able to get one to pick me up and take me to Carrefour so I could get some food supplies. 

This was my trip back to the crib.

My go-pro might be small but it's mighty.

Can't wait to do it all again. 

Diani is the shags I deserve. Peace, tranquility, and an AC. The best holiday ever.

This is NOT An April Fools' Prank

 The child of destiny series is 15% off for half the month of April. Grab the chance to get the entire series just in time for the release of Marcus Devereux later this year. 

Otherwise, how are y'all doing? Inflation and what not kicking your ass? Well, that's why I thought this would be a good time for a discount. Also, my writer group was talking about how difficult it is to sell books and I thought it was time to jumpstart my web marketing. 

It's been difficult, because ghostwriting is taking all my time, but with some recent health challenges I've gone through, I realized I have to MAKE time for the things I love and also the things that keep my engine running. So I'm overhauling my life.

Wish me luck.

Also, buy the books. You know they're worth your time. YOU KNOW. 

In Search of Paradise

I am enjoying the process of creating book trailers. It's a very productive way to procrastinate and also a lot of fun. Also hopefully it attracts some readers to my books. 

What do you think? Waste of time or helpful?

Cinderella By Any Other Name

Book trailers galore!

Child of Destiny

Hi guys. 

This is a reminder that I am primarily an author. Give my video a watch, comment, follow instructions, enjoy.