The Yang Slinger: Vol. XCI

My Tupac Shakur biography is due in three months. That sound you hear is me drowning.

I am writing this from a table inside Crave Cafe, a coffee shop located 1 1/2 hours from my home in Southern California.

I am here because:

A. I am insane.

B. My Tupac Shakur biography is due in three months.

C. I have an electric car and therefore don’t pay for gas.

D. A and B and C.

To explain: When I write, I need to be comfortable. And even though it took me 90 minutes to drive here, the parking is free, the coffee refills are plentiful and the mojo is good. There are places where words flow (Crave) and places where words dry up and die (my kitchen table). So, as I head into crunch time, I choose to go where the words flow.

Wait.

I digress.

I wanted to devote this week’s Substack to explain, in as much detail as possible, what it feels like to have a book due in three months. Were I to sum it all up in a single word, I’d say, “Crazed.” Were I to sum it all up in two words, I’d say, “Fucking crazed.” But since I make my living stringing thoughts together, I think I can do better.

So here I go …

I began work on this project a little more than two years ago, after deciding that—in the wake of 10-straight sports books—I needed a change. My last biography, “The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson,” made the New York Times’ best-seller’s list, but I’d been itching to step away from the baseball-football-basketball trajectory of my career. When I first told my agent, the great David Black, that I’d been considering the concept of a definitive Tupac biography, he asked a series of excellent questions, including:

1. Why you?

2. Does it matter that you’ve only written sports books?

3. Does it matter than you’re (cough) white?

And, well, I thought about it. A lot. And my answers went thusy …

1. Why not me?

2. Biography is biography.

3. Probably.

The third question is obviously the doozy—and it smacked me square in the jaw when a bunch of months ago Kevin Powell, the poet and longtime hip-hop writer who had a relationship with Tupac, told me straight up that I was only able to do this book because of white privilege. He did not mean this as a compliment, a la “Your white privilege glows like 1,000 rainbows, and you would do a wonderful job.” I, eh, wasn’t 100 percent sure how to respond to such an accusation … I mean, I am white and I have been afforded plenty of opportunities over the past 30 years. So I said little (while thinking, “Go fuck yourself”) and did what I always try and do.

I busted my ass.

When I begin a book project, I always think of it as a two-part process. First, I’ll devote 1 1/2 years to research, research, research and more research. With Tupac, the first thing I did was hit (‘em) up eBay and Amazon and order every … single … Tupac … related. … book … one can imagine.

That doesn’t just mean the obvious stuff—Vibe’s compilation of Tupac articles, the (exceptional) Michael Namikas Tupac Encyclopedia, Santi Elijah Holley’s blissful Shakur Family biography. Nope. It means books concerning the growth and development of Baltimore. It means books about crack, about Marin City, about the rise and explosion of hip-hop. It means kids books and out-of-print books and even Bill Bellamy’s autobiography. You read everything.

At the same time I’m building my Tupac book library, I’m going day-by-day through the archives of newspapers.com and constructing a database of everything Tupac Shakur did over the course of his life. If this sounds tedious—it’s tedious. Literally, I spend weeks in front of my laptop searching May 5, 1990—”Tupac Shakur,” then May 6, 1990—”Tupac Shakur,” then May 7, 1990—”Tupac Shakur.” I’d argue the biggest challenge in leaping from sports to non-sports lies within this realm. With Bo Jackson, for example, I have printed day-by-day schedules of where he was 70 percent of the year. If, on May 7, 1990, the Kansas City Royals were hosting the Cleveland Indians, I can go online and now only tell you where Bo was, but what he did. With Tupac, it’s not nearly that simple. If he wasn’t on tour (and Tupac didn’t tour as much as one might think), his whereabouts tend to be a bit of a mystery.

Anyhow, once I have all the books and all the newspapers, I track down the yearbooks. This was a toughie with Tupac, because—dating back to the elementary days—he attended a shitload of schools. I lucked out and found his Baltimore School for the Arts yearbook online (Big ups, Classmates.com), and the great Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post did me a huge solid and trekked to Dunbar High to (quite literally) photograph every page of the yearbook from Tupac’s time there. I then drove seven hours to Northern California to solely (this is no exaggeration) visit a local library where I was told his Tamalpais High School was housed (it was—praise Jesus). All told, I wound up with five yearbooks, and once I had those I went, name by name, through the rows. Student after student after student after student. Adams. Anderson. Apperville. Atherton. That means looking them up on Facebook and Instagram and, oftentimes with no luck, using (the overly expensive but imperative) whitepages.com platinum membership. If I wind up interviewing 200 people who attended school with Tupac, it means I probably called 800.

Yes, it beats you down.

When the time is right, I return to all the newspaper articles. I print them out, then go through with a highlighter, seeking out any names. When I say “any names,” I mean any names. The roadie. The groupie. The real estate agent. The guy who bought Tupac lunch. The kid who begged for his autograph in Toledo. For my money, the difference between a Tupac book and the Tupac book (I always aspire to write the book) is this particular step. Anyone in my position is trying to interview Suge Knight and Money B and Snoop. Those are obvious guys—important, but standard. I crave the folks who have never told their stories; who have never been asked. Truth be told, at this point I’d rather interview the Digital Underground roadie from 1991 than Dr. Dre. There’s simply more new information to obtain. Plus, the roadie will be far less guarded. Dr. Dre has a brand and image to protect. The roadie is psyched someone is calling.

So … all the while, I’m compiling, compiling, compiling. I’m interviewing classmates, tracking down fellow artists, seeking out old friends and enemies. Simultaneously, I’m trying to retrace his steps. Most people don’t realize Tupac was born and raised in New York. I was able to collect all of his boyhood addresses, and went about visiting them, one by one by one. Now, is this 100 percent necessary to write a book? Probably not. But I love the idea of walking where he walked; of being able to place myself in the exact spots he once stood. I will never be the 10-year-old son of a Black Panther sitting on a Harlem stoop. But I can sit on the stoop. It’s magical.

I applied the same tactics to Baltimore, where he attended junior high and high school, then Marin City. I roamed school hallways. I knocked on doors. I was able to tour his mother’s old pad and his grandma’s rundown house. Truly, the goal isn’t simply to understand your subject. It’s to try and embody him. You wanna feel what he felt. You wanna see what he saw. Whether it’s possible or not, that’s the goal.

So, for 1 1/2 years, that’s all I did. Compile and build. Then, a bunch of months ago, I began to write. And it’s brutally hard. Harder than any article I’ve ever worked on. First, because I’m suddenly sitting alongside 623 printed interviews, as well as thousands of printed articles, as well as nearly 100 books. All these years in the game, and it’s still terrifying and intimidating. You might think, at 52, I’d lack self doubt. Well, it’s the opposite. There has yet to be a book project that I sail through with bliss and contentedness. Nope. I’m depressed and grimy and in pain. The impulse to take a long run, eat 1,000 chocolate bars, jerk off, shadow box, pull my hair out, take up vaping—it’s there. Always there. There are 1,000 quotes about the torture of writing, and—for me—they’re all true.

I now have three months remaining until HarperCollins demands the manuscript.

I hate this shit so fucking much.

And yet, I love it.

Ask Jeff Pearlman a fucking question(s)

From Slimebucket: Are you happy now that President Donald Trump got done in by a bunch of liberal New Yorkers and a corrupt judge?: Yes.

From Joe: Is there a book you turn to when you need a lift?: I love this question. And … the answer is a yes/no. There are many books I turn to when I need a lift. Sometimes it’s one of the 50 Complete Handbook of Pro Basketball I have sitting on my shelves. Sometimes it’s the Autobiography of Malcolm X, which is two inches away as I type this. Sometimes it’s just any random biography, where I can pick up some flow tips.

The Quaz Five with … Jennifer Colamonico 

Jennifer Colamonico is the Putnam County (N.Y.) chair of the Democratic Party. It’s an uber-conservative neck of the woods and my old stomping ground. You can follow her on X here.

1. You're the Putnam County chair of the Democratic Party. I grew up in Putnam—and it ain't liberal. So what are the challenges? And does it feel like you're always pushing a boulder uphill?: Putnam is a tiny red county in a state that is otherwise blue, the southernmost rural county that is still a commuter suburb to NYC - the perfectly titrated balance of small town mindset and Murdoch media market (not just Fox News but the Post) with hardly any local journalism. For reference, you could fit 3 Putnams in one single LA city council district. Putnam is where folks moved to get away from “those people” down in NYC or Yonkers - so it is very white and very upper working class (higher paid trades and public servants), except for the western part where you have a lot of second homes for wealthy NYC liberals.  For all those reasons, our biggest challenge has been that Putnam has been ignored by the politicians, the party, and the media (and frankly the economic developers).  I took this role to improve our game, which is starting to work. But party-building is hard…now we have the internal dynamics of the Israel/Gaza situation doing as much or more damage than the external dynamics of the MAGA narrative that Democrats are demonic and dangerous. Within that cesspool we are just trying to find people to run for local government - where partisan politics really don’t and shouldn’t matter but yet Democrats are practically shut out. That is the boulder we are pushing up a hill, just trying to get candidates to run under our banner.  I created the “Purple Putnam Project” because Putnam is really more purple than people think - but the representation is way more red than its electorate. People need to understand that having minority views at the table makes government work better for everyone (and be less corrupt) and might even help people get along better if we don't have to hide in the D closet.

2. Everything feels awful in America. To me, at least. Trump might win again, Biden is 832 years old, divisiveness, hate, etc. Do you have ANY reasons for hope?: Not all 832 year olds are the same, and these two candidates are not remotely the same. I saw a meme the other day that said something like “in a race between two old guys, I’m going with the one who isn’t a sociopath.” The MAGA anger is just negativity and bitching about concerns without actually solving any problems - and I think people are getting sick of that. President Biden is a truly good man who uses his power to do good…but it can’t happen fast enough. I am more and more bullish about defending his stellar record of accomplishment, but many people don’t feel it yet. That said, three things give me hope. First, at least this year we are in one of the most targeted House races in the nation (CD17) and so we are not being ignored - we will have the resources to really engage our voters - we will not be ignored! Second, I think people are exhausted by Trump’s swirling bullshit…the horse race is too close now but it is too early in the campaign to panic, and I believe that when the campaign has done its work, more people will understand that the choice is clear.  Finally, I am inspired by the Democratic bench of younger leaders, who will be future candidates once we end this long national suffering of the Trump era - we have such better ideas about the future. But first, we have to get through this election to make sure we even have a future. 

3. How does a Californian wind up in ... Carmel, N.Y.?: LA professional kisses Queens fireman in NYC on NYE…falls in love and moves to NY.  Putnam was the most affordable, closest FDNY commute where we could buy a house and start a family...and here we are 20 years later. We have a lovely home and life here but in retrospect I should have checked the voter registration first. Politically I moved from a blue bubble to a red one - I cut my teeth in California politics working in Berkeley and Santa Cruz and LA and West Hollywood and here I am now mucking around in Mahopac, until very recently still home of the “Indians” mascot.  My personal journey mirrored my political one. My husband was a Republican when I met him (changing over time and formally ending on Jan 6 2021), so over the years I have learned a lot about differences in mindset and approach between Team Red and Team Blue and how we can find agreement. Carmel/Mahopac has a MAGA underbelly but is full of lovely and generous people and we all stand side by side to cheer our kids and march in parades and lift weights and bitch about grocery prices. I miss California most when the bugs come out in the spring, when the air gets cold in the fall, and those two weeks before every election when that blue bubble seems really appealing.

4. In your real world job, your title is "Senior Director of Thought Leadership." What exactly does a thought leadership person do?: Basically I help people use their smarts to make an impact on their field. When you are in the business of “selling” smart people, as consulting firms do, thought leadership is like “sampling” the smart people - kind of like the free cheese at Costco - doing webinars and podcasts to talk about issues that matter. If people like that bite of wisdom, they want to buy more. So I work with really smart subject matter experts and help tell stories to share insights and a point of view in an engaging way to help people better understand their market. In short, I make a lot of PowerPoint decks - PPT is my professional love language - and help people better communicate ideas that matter. Similar to my political work but totally not partisan...in healthcare, as in most policy areas, no one side has all the right ideas. 

5. There's a crazy person in Carmel named Tatiana who is loud and brash and super MAGA and heavily involved in local politics. I've taken some joy in going at her—but, strategically, is it best to ignore said people? Is there an ideal approach to the awfuls?: Generally I think giving these people more attention only makes them do more awful and hateful stuff - Tatiana got more subdued once the Fox News cameras stopped following her. However it is super important to correct the misinformation spewed by people like her. I have a hard time letting bullshit stand unchallenged on social media. This is the whole strategy of the Moms for Liberty/MAGA crowd - saying awful things are happening that are not actually happening and accusing people who disagree of supporting the awful thing. Rather than debating the awfulness of the hypothetical non-issue, we just need to keep pointing out that this awful thing isn’t even a thing but a distraction for these other serious issues that demand attention...and calling them out for posting hate. The goal isn’t changing the minds of people like Tatiana - the 20% MAGA true-believers clearly aren’t changing. But there is another 20-40% who are probably too busy to do the research…so challenging the MAGA bullshit hopefully causes some of these folks to think twice about believing what they read. Or so a girl can hope. 

Bonus—rank in order, favorite to least—Bernie Kosar, Sharae Nix, Fruit Loops, Camila Cabello, the Freight House Cafe, Kamala Harris, Easter egg hunts, your driver's license photo: 1. Kamala Harris (so maligned!); 2. Sharae Nix (she is that impressive - her future is bright!); 3. Fruit Loops (never actually eat them but I always want to); 4. Camila Cabello (beautiful and talented and not stick skinny - I am here for it); 5. your driver's license photo (the older I get the more I appreciate it); 6. the Freight House Cafe (love the concept, but the coffee isn’t kept hot); 7. Bernie Kosar (my cousin is a big Browns fan but I personally feel pretty neutral about Kosar); 8. Easter egg hunts (never fun for parents, let’s be honest).

A random old article worth revisiting …

On July 6, 1956, the United Press International wrote of a veteran snake handler named William Haast who was flown to New Orleans to give his magic blood to a woman who was attacked by a cobra. Alas, he arrived too late.

The Madness of Tyler Kepner’s Grid …

So unless you’ve been living beneath a pebble beneath a rock beneath a big hunk of cheese, you’re aware of Immaculate Grid, the daily game that’s drawn thousands of nerdy sports fans (guilty!) to its ranks. And while the NBA grid, NFL grid, NHL grid and WNBA grid are all fun, this game is at its best when it comes to baseball—where the names are endless and the transactions ceaseless.

Over the past few weeks I’ve often discussed the grid with Tyler Kepner, the Athletic baseball writer. And now, for kicks, every week I feature one of Tyler’s bonkers grid results. He’s the ultimate baseball geek (I say this with great affection), and his outputs blow my mind.

So …

Tyler thoughts …

• Tim Conroy I remember from an oddly-dark 1986 Topps card

• Glenn Burke, who invented the high 5 and was (essentially) an openly gay player, was the subject of a great book by my friend Andrew Maraniss

• Andrew Lorraine is a guy I use all the time. Covered him briefly with Seattle.

• David Green was a promising young hitter for the Cardinals on their 1982 WS team. They traded him to SF in the Jack Clark deal.

• Bobo Newsom played for the 3 original NY teams (and many others)

• Allen Watson is a guy I covered with both the Angels and Mariners. He also played for the other two teams I covered (Mets and Yankees); the only other guy to play for all 4 is Rickey Henderson

• Greg Bargar, I don’t know why I remember him, he had a very short career, but I used him a lot in a dice baseball game I played as a kid.

• Elias Sosa gave up Reggie Jackson’s second of three HRs in Game 6 of the 1977 WS

• Sean Spencer played very briefly for the Mariners when I covered them in 1999

This week’s college writer you should follow on Instagram …

Mady Leick, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

So I’m an absolute sucker for farewell columns that traditionally run at the end of academic years, and Leick, a copy editor for the Spectator, delivers with A BITTER STORY WITH A SWEET END.

Writes Leick:

One can follow Mady on Instagram here.

Best of luck in the real world, kid!

Journalism musings for the week …

Musing 1: I’m not saying Donald Trump’s conviction changes anything come November. But it makes me happy that justice actually prevailed, and even Orange Goober Boy isn’t 100-percent untouchable.

Musing 2: Why is the New York Times printing this? Seriously. Trump lies about everything. Absolutely everything. So when he says he’s raised more than $30 million, I wanna see receipts. No, I wanna see the dough.

Musing 3: I love seeing this from Will Leitch. And I also envy him terribly

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Musing 4: A frightening and well-reported piece from Ken Silverstein of the New Republic headlined OFF LEASH: INSIDE THE SECRET, GLOBAL, FAR-RIGHT GROUP CHAT. Erik Prince is no dummy. But he’s plenty evil.

Musing 5: Dope piece from Sridhar Pappu of Andscape on Dave Parker, the former Pittsburgh Pirates slugger whose impact on Black ballplayers goes sadly unappreciated. Writes Pappu: “Parker had come from the Oakland A’s in part to work with Sheffield, who spent his early days in tumult. Just four years younger than his uncle, pitcher Dwight Gooden, he bristled about his move from shortstop to third base, claiming racial bias. He fought with ownership over a misdiagnosed injury. He struggled to hit. White veteran players, he said, didn’t protect him against pitchers. Sheffield was left to defend himself in this unforgiving new world. When he heard that Parker signed as a free agent with the Brewers before the 1990 season, Sheffield found the player, the person who had gone missing since his major league debut. ‘I felt alive again.’ he said.”

Musing 6: Gannett has ruined so many pieces of journalism, so I’m loathe to give the company credit for anything. But I can appreciate The Tennessean, my old haunt, trying to reinvent and reimagine the Sunday newspaper. This, from Benjamin Goad, explains.

Musing 7: Oh my God—I’m here for Tim Wildsmith, an expert published Bible reviewer, and his breakdown of the Trump Bible.

Musing 8: Props to the New York Times’ Jonathan Alter for this chat with Andrew Giuliani during Trump’s verdict:

Musing 9: Larry Newman, my mother in law’s cool-ass boyfriend, is eternally trying to get me to listen to John Prine songs. And, usually, I fall asleep. But the L-Dogg nailed it with, “In Spite of Ourselves” with Iris DeMent. Absolute gold.

Musing 10: The new Two Writers Slinging Yang stars Sarah Leach, the former Holland Sentinel editor who was dicked by Gannett.

Quote of the Week …