My 300th post

Excuse my party hat, but I’ve got cause to celebrate. When I launched this blog eight months ago, I didn’t know how long I could keep it going (me not being renowned for my stamina).

Well, this is my 300th post. And blogging is the most fun I’ve had as a writer in five years.

I’ll devote this post to updating other posts. (Click on the headlines below to read the original pieces.)

Assassination of a journalist

Dick Prince’s blog, Journal-isms, has been the place to turn for updates about the broad-daylight murder of Chauncey Bailey, the Oakland journalist. Prince linked to an August 7 San Francisco Chronicle story which reported this fascinating fact:

Saleem Bey, who had worked for years at Your Black Muslim Bakery, revealed himself to be the inside source for Bailey’s investigation of the bakery’s shady dealings.

“I gave him the stories. I knew everything that was going on,” Saleem Bey told the Chronicle. “I thought it was dangerous for me, not him.”

Earlier, a 19-year-old handyman at Your Black Muslim Bakery confessed to the ambush killing of Chauncey Bailey.

Here’s the kicker: Saleem Bey was a son-in-law of the late Yusuf Bey, the founder of Your Black Muslim Bakery and a community activist who’d had his own run-ins with the law. In Mafia terms, Saleem “betrayed the family” by revealing secrets to Bailey, but it was the journalist who paid with his life. This sick drama is not over yet... not by a long shot.

For ‘Chocolate Rain’ fans only!

The mainstream media are all over Tay Zonday, Mr. “Chocolate Rain,” the Internet star of the summer. The L.A. Times profiled him in Sunday’s paper. So did the Toronto Star, which revealed Tay’s real name – Adam Bahner. He’s a grad student in Minnesota.

Today MTV.com profiled him. And last week Tay performed his hit song on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” You go, bruh.

Lawrence Auster’s ‘female trouble’

The hubbub over fringe-right blogger Larry Auster’s examination of the ruinous effect of women’s right to vote... well, over the weekend it spread like an oil slick at two conservative group blogs – New English Review and What’s Wrong with the World.

Auster posted numerous comments at both blogs, and I jumped into it like a game of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Oh, it was feisty.

Mary Jackson at New England Review shut down that discussion after a while, which pissed off Auster because he didn’t get the last word. The conversation is still rolling at What’s Wrong with the World, where a few ignorant fuckstains posted insulting remarks about my racial status and professional accomplishments. But (in the words of Oscar Brown, Jr.) I was cool.

I bring all this up for those of you who like to watch blog wars, or who specifically like to see me mix it up with Mr. Auster.

Attack of the GIANT NEGROES!!

Shortly after midnight this morning, somebody in the MetaFilter community linked to my original Giant Negroes post from last month. I didn’t even know what MetaFilter was.

Now I do. Because readers started pouring into this joint by the hundreds. I’m talking about 1 a.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m. in the morning... hundreds per hour.

I try not to get hung up on numbers, but this blog has been averaging 600 site visits per day. (And they’re not all regular readers; many are folks who just happened to Google “Petey Greene” or “David Simon” or “Vanessa Del Rio.”) On my best day ever, I got close to 1,000 site visits.

Today: more than 5,000 visits.

Such is the impact when the MeFi community takes notice of you. And it was a quite unexpected gift on the day of my 300th post.