You Knew The Rules When You Got Into This

The narrative the mainstream media is pushing right now is that Caroline Kennedy has boxed in the governor of New York with her announcement that she wants to be considered for the New York Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton. I don’t know if we fully understand as a country what New York has in having David Paterson as its governor. The media seems to have little regard for this blind, brown-skinned governor in its rush to anoint Ms. Kennedy before he announces his selection.

As the latest brouhaha over last weekend’s Saturday Night Live skit that poked fun at Paterson’s blindness shows, we don’t really know how far we can go with someone who has lost their sight. Or how much we should expect them to be capable of accomplishing. Instead, the airwaves are filled with a storyline that suggests the Senate seat is Kennedy's to take, rather than Paterson's to give.

I have watched the movie Ray about a hundred times. Even though Jamie Foxx’s physical features only broadly resemble those of the real Ray Charles, Foxx’s incomparable ability to imitate the legendary R & B singer’s sound, mannerisms and style hold me in a trance even now, after I have practically memorized the film’s every nuance.

Charles turned a handicap into an asset, using his disability as a tool to disarm his business partners, neutralize hostile band members, and charm the ladies – a whole lot of ladies - right out of their underwear.

I have to confess – when I saw newly sworn in David Paterson at his first real press conference, confessing to a series of sexual affairs with women in and out of government while his attractive wife stood beside him, I couldn’t help but think about the scene in Ray where the camera focused on the routine Ray Charles used to determine whether or not a prospective date was pretty.

I could hear the actor Bokeem Woodbine doing the voiceover of that scene in his role as saxophonist “Fathead” Newman loud and clear when I watched Paterson speak into the microphone: "Look at Ray. You see that? He feels her wrist 'cause he figures that's the way to tell if she's good-looking or not."

In the many, many times I watched this movie, I saw over and over again how an intelligent man turned his physical limitation into an advantage, allowing him to prey on unsuspecting foes and sympathetic adversaries when need be with a surprising level of ruthlessness, not only in his personal relationships, but in his business dealings.

Paterson is quick witted and wily, the son of a renowned politician, his tutelage straight from old school Harlem's black political elite, much the way Ray Charles learned the basics of music from an old-time stride style piano player. I would not underestimate Paterson's abilities for one minute.

So Caroline Kennedy needs to watch out – because if Paterson ever says “you knew the rules when you got into this”, she probably won’t be getting the news she wants to hear.

When Do Rags Do Wrong

Normalcy.

That’s what everybody who ascends from obscurity to fame says they want – a chance at living a normal life, without the demands and pressures that stardom brings. Plaxico Burress is the latest superstar to succumb to the rigors of celebrity, shooting himself in the leg with a gun he carried for protection against possible enemies while he was at a New York nightclub last Friday night.

It isn’t just our movie stars and sports figures and recording artists who feel this way – even Barack Obama himself has acknowledged that he too would sometimes like to be able to enjoy something simple, like taking a walk in the park with his daughters.

For those of us who do not inhabit such stratospheric heights, this yearning may come across as naiveté, or worse, be considered an act designed to elicit sympathy from the public. After all, most of us would gladly trade some of our more mundane moments for a few of their star crossed ones.

The thing that Barack Obama has been talking about lately – the danger of being trapped in a presidential “bubble”, with all communication from the outside world filtering through ten to twelve key aides who report directly to the president – is also a phenomenon that is associated with modern celebrityhood.

Guys with long telephoto lenses and a total lack of moral boundaries stalk the famous twenty four hours a day, hoping to be the first to catch someone famous doing something out of the ordinary on film because…well, because the magazines and entertainment shows who buy their work use these photos to keep our attention long enough for it to translate into increased ratings or enlarged viewerships.

These young men, from Mike Tyson to Ray Lewis to Michael Vick to Plaxico Burress, may be portrayed as thugs, hoodlums, or gangsters, but I would posit that they are also afraid of what is out here, waiting for them at every turn. And some of this yearning for normalcy comes in spite of participation in all kinds of abnormal behavior.

Like wearing a doo rag with your street clothes.

I included Ray Lewis in this list because the Baltimore Ravens star defensive player has been able to take full advantage of the notion of redemption that undergirds America’s criminal justice system.

Lewis lived the high life as well as anybody until the fateful New Year’s Eve right here in Atlanta back in 2000, when Lewis and members of his “posse” were charged with murder in the Buckhead nightclub killing that year. He was the first active NFL player to ever stand trial for murder.

This high profile brush with the law, which riveted audiences to Court TV in the summer of 2000, changed Lewis. He was found not guilty of all major charges. He ditched his “posse”. He moved his mom in with him. He began to pray daily. And he refocused on his career, leading the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl championship just a year later.

In a television interview a few years ago, Lewis acknowledged that he had finally come to terms with the responsibility that came with fame and fortune, and the constraints that it imposed on him.

So when I look at the tall, handsome, physically accomplished athlete that is Plaxico Burress, I don't see an idiot, or a career criminal - I see arrested development. The problems he has been having at home lately, speaking from my own experience, sound more like the conflicts that a young man has when he is trying to do the right thing by his family AND relive the his glory days at the same time.

The gunshot wound will heal, pretty much on its own. But this other thing, this restlessness, this need to be "in the mix", is something many of us have had to deal with by making a conscious effort to change what we are doing and what we believe in.

I'd start with that scruff on your chin, Plaxico. Just whack that thing off, because your chin is the prow of your vessel, your own ship, and right now its not headed in the right direction.

Then I'd trash the do rags, partly because you've still got a nice head of hair left that you need to show off, but mostly because there is something about the act of pulling on that bit of fabric that promotes the dark forces within you to unleash themselves, something that ofetn tells those uncivilized urges to put on an impromptu exhibition when you least expect it.

Because brother, if there was ever a time in your life to do right, this is it.