Walt Shepperd is a veteran of Central New York's political scuffle, having covered government and politics in Syracuse for more than four decades before being asked for press credentials.
He is the Senior Editor of the City Eagle and the Mayor of Montgomery Street in downtown Syracuse.
Shepperd is also the producer of the The Media Unit, Central New York national award winning teen performance and production troupe.
Samadee is his alter ego. At least that's the rumor.
Those for whom the grass is always greener someplace else, drop everything and immediately check out the city’s new pocket park. That’s where they did the demolition on the corner of East Fayette and South Warren (across from Lemp Jewelers), where they closed the sidewalk and put up chainlink fence and cleared the rubble. The park went up so fast as to inspire an Obama-like hope factor for the downtown vista. Initially people stopped to stare at the five benches, not sit on them, almost as if there would be photo ID checks to hang out. Perhaps initial detachment was maintained by the display window aura of the half-acre urban green space...
Having subsisted primarily on bar food since 9/11, Samadee looked forward to his reunion with Cousin Stella at Sparky Town as a step toward culinary rehab. His only reservation (sometimes necessary for large groups at Monday through Saturday lunch or Friday and Saturday dinner at 422-8401) came from DJ Shadow’s admonition that one should never eat what one could not spell. A regular at the dispensary of “fresh healthy comfort food,” since she both lived and attended beautician school in the Hawley-Green, Stella began explaining tempeh, anti-oxidant salad and ezekiel bread before he opened the menu.
She was just off the bus after a trek to New Orleans in search of fresh spells...
If you have time to read this summer, and you have resisted or recovered from the addiction to tiny screens with instant non-information, a dose of humor at this point could be strongly indicated, as well as some cultural, historical and political perspective, and a dash of just plain absurdity. The humor can also be had with perspective from On the Real Side: Laughing, Lying and Signifying—the Underground Tradition of African-American Humor that Transformed American Culture from Slavery to Richard Pryor (Simon and Schuster). Watkins, Colgate grad and former editor at the New York Times Book Review is the go-to person on the subject for the Arts and Entertainment channel and PBS...
TAGS: Summer random reading,The biography,On the Real Side: Laughing, Lying and Signifying—the Underground Tradition of African-American Humor that Transformed American Culture from Slavery to Richard Pryor,Watkins, Colgate,New York Times Book Review, Life and Times of Lincoln Perry,Paul Maliszewski,Fakers: Hoaxers, Con Artists, Counterfeiters, and other Great Pretenders,Media Unit, Monster Book Sale,Arts and Crafts Festival,Stepin Fetchit
