Outside of writing, I'm just a pretty easy going Brooklynite! I can join you at a bar and talk, or I can whip your ass at pool. I love live music of almost any kind, but a good, diverse DJ is also hard to beat. I love a good movie. I get around on a '99 Yamaha V-Star 1100, when weather permits. I love chess, even though I've let my game fall off in recent years, since I no longer have anyone to play with. I'm a tad sarcastic. Some people call it a defense mechanism, but I call it art.
With me, music is all about my MOOD! A bad mood and feelings of loneliness could mean Sade or some blues, ala Muddy Waters, BB King or John Lee Hooker. If I'm just happy and high on life it's time to pull out the Motown, as in the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder or Aretha Franklin. I lift weights to hip hop like Tupac, Fat Joe, 50, Ja Rule and TI and do cardio to electric guitar-driven stuff like The Rolling Stones, U2, Green Day, Deck Of Jack or Evanesence. I bust out the Public Enemy and RUN DMC when I'm hangin' with old friends. When I'm trying to set a certain mood, slow jams with Al Green, Luther Vandross, or Mary J. Blige, or reggae are on the menu. Hell, I even have a Bonnie Raitt CD laying around here somewhere and just discovered Slipknot. In other words, I listen to all kinds of 'ish'!
Also, big shout to NY OIL & Amanda Diva, doing what they can to bring back rap music that makes you think, instead of all this crime rhyme stuff!
And speaking of guitar...give my man Reid Paley and my boys Deck of Jack a listen. They are down there somewhere in the 'Friend Zone!'
Movies
MyHotComments
Too many to list, but here's what comes to mind here and now. Jaws. Alien & Aliens. Predator. New Jack City. Various Star Wars movies. Various works of Akira Kurosawa. The Crow. Blacula. Anything with Christopher Lee as Dracula. Batman Begins. Casino. All of Me w/ Steve Martin & Lily Tomlin cause that was a funny ass flick, Bingo Long & The Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, Me, Myself and Irene, Claudine, Crash, anything starring Richard Pryor, Sin City. As I think of other stuff I'll add.
Of course one of my favorite gangster movies of all time is: SVP's Reluctant Hitman (OK I directed a VERY short film and there is no place better to put it but here so here it is!)
There will be more to come-- as soon as I can figure out how to pay for them. :)
Television
Lost and The Shield are my current Favs. Of course, nothing beats a good episode of Sanford and Son. Speaking of Old School: Quantum Leap, The Nightstalker, (the original), and Sliders.
And of course, The BOONDOCKS!! I had a great Boondocks clip, but YouTube yanked it. So instead, here's something from NYOIL-- a guy you makes more sense than a lot of other rappers out there!
This is very cool-- but what you need to check out is NYOIL's 'Y'all Should All Get Lynched.'
View my page on NYOIL the ideal
Speaking of Television... I have a new hero and his name is Keith Olbermann! Countdown with Keith Olbermann, only on MSNBC!
Books
Other than my own? Old School Stephen King; Salem's Lot, The Shining, Misery, etc. James Baldwin's, Go Tell It On The Mountain. Pryor Convictions, by, you guessed it, Richard Pryor. Anything by Frank Miller i.e. Batman The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City. Oh, and my man Willie Shakes, he wrote a few good plays.
My name is Steven Van Patten. I'm the author of the Brookwater's Curse Vampire Novel series. The first novel's plot revolves around Christian Brookwater, an 1860s Georgia plantation slave who becomes a vampire. Most of the book is the chronicle of Christian's life, but there is a subplot involving a powerful vampire that Christian is suspected of murdering. In Volume II, a civil war within the vampire community erupts and Christian must join forces with a young werewolf king in order to save his allies, a band of vampire samurai from annihilation.
For more info, please visit the following link:
Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession
The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.
Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.
Who I'd like to meet: Anyone interested in purchasing the novels can also look them up on AMAZON.COM, or Barnes & Noble.com or ask your local retailer to order it up.
Hey, while you're here...check out this animated clip produced by the very talented Jerry Craft.
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