1. Who is Gerald Rice? He's a dead body rotting in the corpse of a rusted out Grand Am in the backyard of an abandoned house in Highland Park. Hey look- I just found him that way, I didn't do it. But me? I'm a guy who did a lot of different things before finally coming back to my passion. I'm a father and a husband too. I'm a lifelong Detroiter where ever I go. I'm a grateful child of a broken home.
2. What are you passionate about? Books. Reading was my first passion, writing is my second. No, horror movies were my first passion. Then reading, then writing. I started watching horror movies when I was about 4. My mother introduced me to them. She was a huge Stephen King fan and she was really the reason I started reading for pleasure. I was in the Horizons Upward Bound program when I decided to start writing as a hobby. I had a creative writing class where we all had to write a story and read it aloud to the class. There was something so addictive about having a captive audience listening to something I created. I wasn't really that good at first, I think I can be bold enough to say I was pretty bad. But I never stopped wanting it. I committed myself to learning from the books I read. People like Stephen King (obviously), F. Paul Wilson, Al Sarantonio, Ethan Black, most recently David Wong and a host of others.
3. Why should the world take notice of you? I'm different. Not that I'm the only unique voice, but I think all unique voices should be heard. You won't pick up another book on the shelves like mine. I've always been the 'what's next' or 'what's new' guy. If I'm writing about monsters I want it to be THAT monster you think of when you lie awake at night. I want to push any genre I write in, to create someone else's favorite or most hated character. I'm not a black writer; I'm a writer who just so happens to be black. Just like I'm a writer who just so happens to have feet. It's a part of me, a major part even, but not my sum total.
4. Old school music or todays Hip Hop and R&B? I'm going to say both and neither. My tastes are weird. There's a lot of old stuff I just never dug and a lot of old stuff I only liked because my parents liked it and a lot of stuff I just got burned out on. And whenever I had control of the radio in the car I was always flipping past stuff other people probably liked. My mama used to have nights where she would let me or my brother pick the music. We could go through her extensive record collection and play a dozen or so songs. I picked stuff like 'Electric Avenue' (back when nobody was listening to Eddie Grant except like 5 people and we were 3 of them), Billy Ocean and Rod Stewart (don't pretend like 'Da Ya Think I'm Sexy' wasn't the jam). Stevie Wonder is my all-time favorite artist but I can't STAND 'Ribbon in the Sky' anymore; give me 'Do I Do' or 'Creepin'' (I also can only listen to like 2 Luther Vandross songs and his version isn't one of them).
But the new guys, I don't know, I don't keep up with music like I used to so it's tough to name who I like. Jaheim, I think his name is, every time I hear him I have to turn him off. I liked 'Ain't Leavin' Without You' back when George Benson called it 'Gimme the Night'. But I'm a huge fan of Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Corinne Bailey Rae. Some Alicia Keys is okay and Rihanna is like junk food. I know it's not really that good, but I can't help myself.
5.What are your life rules?
Don't expect to get something you don't give
Expect me to pick at you if you let me know something bugs you (it's a Rice trait--we're jerks like that)
Be careful who you step on today, they might be standing over you tomorrow
Don't touch my food
Stay out of other people's bedrooms
Seeing your mother naked after 12 will give you eyeball cancer
6. If God sent you a text message what would it say? What did you put in the turkey burgers? Those were awesome.
7. 5 Favs -
a. color - Green
b. food - steak (medium well)
c. movie - The Thing
d. song - 'What You Won't Do for Love'
e. drink - Cranberry juice
8. Do you forgive regardless of what someone has done to you? I like that JFK quote: Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
9. If you could change your past would you? Sometimes I think I would, but it then again everything I've done up until now has lead me here. My life isn't the greatest, but I can't imagine life without the people I have in it or the things I've accomplished.
10. Random thought - If there's something you really want to do with your life then you won't let any obstacle stand in the way of you doing it.
11. Where can we find you on the net? Feel My Ghost or my Facebook page, which I have no idea how to find.
12. Fill in the blank with one word - To know Gerald Rice is to be touched by the squishy brain of Gerald Rice.
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