Award-winning activist journalist and motivational speaker Jeff Johnson dares the post - Civil Rights generation to stop making excuses, overcome personal challenges, and create lives filled with passion, meaning, and service in Everything I'm Not Made Me Everything I Am. This empowering strategic guide for manifesting and achieving your personal B.E.S.T. highlights Johnson's unique blend of political consciousness and street-smart inspiration. A committed youth advocate, Johnson offers a lifeline to those who feel lost in a sea of choices, distractions, and self-imposed limits. Everything I'm Not Made Me Everything I Am offers practical guidance for learning how to unplug from the programmed expectations of family and society in order to discover and fulfill your unique life's mission.
The Human Condition of Loneliness casts its shadow over all of us. The sting of mental health issues pricks us all. These are a collection of practices implemented by one individual’s perspective on the absurdity of existence. We all want to be understood, while understanding no one can experience life the exact same way we can. It’s what gives our unique perspective such value and weight. The biggest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. From beyond the veil can we start to lift the curtain and become Whole, One at a time. This is one idea on how to overcome even your darkest demons.
The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.
In this “triumphantly funny” (AV Club) memoir, comedian Jensen Karp tells the story of how, as a Jewish kid from the L.A. suburbs, he became a rap battle legend—and then almost became a star. “The funniest person I follow on Twitter finally got smart and wrote about his unlikely—and hilarious—odyssey as teenage rapper Hot Karl.”—Kevin Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Tough Sh*t When twelve-year old Jensen Karp got his first taste of rapping for crowds at his friend’s bar mitzvah in 1991, little did he know that he was taking his first step on a journey that would end with a failed million-dollar recording and publishing deal with Interscope Records when he was only nineteen. Now, in Kanye West Owes Me $300, Karp finally tells the true story of his wild ride as “Hot Karl,” the most famous white rapper you’ve never heard of. On his way to (almost) celebrity, Jensen shares his childhood run-ins with rock-listening, Southern California classmates, who tell him that “rap is for black people,” and then recounts his record-breaking rap battling streak on popular radio contest “The Roll Call”—a run that caught the eye of a music industry hungry for new rap voices in the early ’00s. He also introduces his rap partner, Rickye, who constitutes the second half of their group XTra Large; his supportive mom, who performs with him onstage; and the soon-to-be-household-name artists he records with, including Redman, Fabolous, Mya, and will.i.am. Finally, he reveals why his album never saw the light of day (two words: Slim Shady), the downward spiral he suffered after, and what he found instead of rap glory. Full of rollicking stories from his close brush with fame, Karp’s hilarious memoir is the ultimate fish-out-of-water story about a guy who follows an unlikely passion—trying to crack the rap game—despite what everyone else says. It’s 30 Rock for the rap set; 8 Mile for the suburbs; and quite the journey for a white kid from the valley.
