Oh, and who knew ya’ll liked Exie so much? LOL! Go figure.
Keep posting. It makes me happy, let’s me know someone out there is reading.
I was at Book Expo in June, an annual gathering of the who’s who in the book industry, with a fellow editor from another publishing house. She's a southern belle too and we were exiting the convention center when a girl ran up to my girl, introduced herself, and began to nervously pitch her manuscript. It seems the girl had dated a high profile football player (NY Giant) for a couple years and she’d written a tell-all book about their tumultuous relationship. Belle2 politely passed the woman her card and said the same thing every editor says to anyone who verbally pitches an idea: send me a proposal next week. (You'd be amazed at the number of aspiring authors who never follow up on this.)
The woman switched away in a tight white dress that highlighted one of her better assets and as she did, Belle2 and I turned to each other and gave the ‘’are you fucking kidding me?'’ look, scrunched up faces and all. I’d walked the floor at Jacob Javitz for 3-4 hours that day and the day before wearing a badge that listed my title and pub house. That was the 7th woman I’d encountered in 2 days looking to dime out her ex-whatever in a book. Over an early dinner at my then- favorite restaurant 44&X, Belle2 relayed the same stories of similar encounters as did a bunch of other editors who joined us later. By the third round of chocolate martinis, a table of publishing's finest had concluded that there is a national epidemic of chicks who can't control their beaks.
I sorta get why. You can get famous simply by heading off someone famous. Just ask Monica Lewinsky. And you can get grossly paid for it too. Ask Supahead, who received a mil-plus advance for a 3 book deal in her last publishing contract. (The alleged $7.5 mil she received for book one was a gross exaggeration. More like $75k.)
Flocks of feathered friends are turning up in unexpected places now too--like the cover of Essence. Last September, KP opened her beak to the reigning Black women's magazine about her love affair with Crazy bka Sean Combs. Last month, she squawked again. It seems that after getting played timelessly, she finally left Didster in a dramatic fashion that included packing up her shit and bouncing with the ninos while he was out of town. In the most recent TMI rant, she dimes the negro out about another child he fathered by yet another woman.
That the whole reading-world knows the ins and outs of their relationship (which any relationship expert will tell you is a no-no) takes a secondary place to the fact that the whole reading world knows Kim is the biggest bird since Sesame Street. Not because she went back. Again. (A week after the Essence story hit stands, she in Did I Do That? were hanging and shopping in the Hamptons on White Party Weekend.) But because she keeps speaking pigeon. Why oh why won’t she shut the f*ck up? She’s told us how Didster's fathered children outside the relationship, pointed out that he has three children by her and he won’t marry her, more or less acknowledged that he cheats on her rampantly and yet she's still with him. Bird. And unlike authors, Kim’s not even diming her and Didster out for the money. The OK! Interview she did pre-Essence might have paid, but Essence was free. She's whoring out her life solely for the attention! (Note to all fathers: hug your young daughters. Show them how a man who loves a woman treats her. Treat them like Irv Gotti treats Angie.)
Sometimes when birds flap their beaks, it's not about the fame or the fortune, just simple revenge. I heard a woman bragging recently to a chick about a dude they had in common. He was dating (officially claiming) one of them, but still calling the other one. The chick who was being called--not claimed–was proud of that. My first thought: Bird. I heard another story that's making the Industry rounds about a popular male celebrity who likes to be baby powdered down, then put in a diaper and spanked. The chick who pinned the nappy and lit his ass on fire tells this tale every chance she gets as if it's only degrading to him. Bird. Another chick –a chubby girl with horrid self-esteem issues-whines to anyone listening about how her man talks to her greasy all the time. Apparently, he paid most of her bills (she worked but spent all her dough on ill-fitting clothes) and when she got mad at him she would punish him by refusing to give him sex, but kept giving him head. (Full disclosure: the real reason she wouldn’t break him off anymore was she was fucking another dude he sorta knew.) Oh, and he used activator to keep his unnaturally curly hair in curls. She tells his business to anyone with ears but doesn't seem to get that while she's talking, everyone's thinking, 'why in the hell are you heading off a disrespectful negro who a jheri curl?' Bird!
So after the women tell these stories, diming out the men who trusted them, or at the very least supported them as in the case of Carmen Bryan and the chick dating Ol Soul Glo, these ladies (again, I use the term loosely) want to be treated with respect. Carmen gets mad when Wendy Williams goes at her grimey on the show. She's proudly confessed to fucking 2 dudes at the same time and expects to be treated like the First Lady. Supahead gets tight on some other radio show and demands to be called by her government name from here on out after she's penned a second book about her dual-industry whoredom. Are you really demanding R-E-S-P-E-C-T after you S-U-C-K-E-D half the Billboard 100--and then wrote about it?
Whoooddahh! Whooddahh! (My attempt to call to the pigeons in their native tongue.)
Pause your wings (and beaks) mid-flap and listen up.
Be scandalous! Do dirty nasty, filthy lewd acts that will shame your surname for generations to come if you so chose. I’m not old-fashioned enough to tell women to keep their legs closed and not to do any dirt. All I’m saying is keep your mouth shut so no one’s talking about what you do. You can fuck every dude in the Tri-State who asks to just put the head in and still be a lady. I maintain that you’re only a whore or a bird if everyone knows your business.
All you secret-spilling women with these juicy stories about fucked up lovers should know that you are showing the world just how fucked up you are too. Oh, we're reading and watching and listening to your tales of explicit woe and salacious fuckery, but when you're done we're laughing at you. Not with you.
Think on that the next time you whore your private life for attention, fame, or finance.