Rodney King, long the butt of so many jokes with lead-ins about failed civil rights, police brutality, racism and profiling in the era of Arsenio Hall and NWA at the dawn of videotaping everything before the “broadcast yourself” edict of YouTube, the self-flagellating narcissism of reality TV and the faked friendliness of Facebook, was found dead Sunday at the bottom of the swimming pool he’d built himself inlaid with tiles with two dates.   

The stairway to the Goodnight Moon room at The Blue Marble serves as a portal to a simpler, more magical time most of us recall as childhood. The local Fort Thomas children’s bookstore this month celebrates 33 years providing literature for children of all ages and interests.   

It’s been about 16 months since I met my father for the first (and what looks like only) time. It would be difficult to describe his presence in my life. For 40 years, he was an absence, a void, a ghost in the machine; one that I can’t say I missed.  

I’ve got a problem. Some call it a problem, at least. Personally, I prefer “fixation.” Better yet, a love. Passion. Interest. Civic duty, if you want to be fancy about it. Ask any of my former roommates; they’ll call it a compulsion. A quirk. The one descriptor they’ll use to sum me up to their next roommate. “God, she had this weird thing about recycling … drove me nuts.”    

HBO’s Documentary Films Summer Series presents a different intriguing, timely film each Monday through July 30. The series covers a vast array of topics, from social issues to pop culture, each with a unique perspective. First up is One Nation Under Dog: Stories of Fear, Loss and Betrayal (9 p.m. Monday), a three-part documentary that sheds light on America’s complicated relationship with canines.  

I write this to the slurred black icky thump of D’Angelo’s “Devil’s Pie” (I know I/was born to die/searching to find/peace of mind),  pausing occasionally in my writing cockpit to look up at the grainy, overdeveloped black and white Polaroid of my parents on the Hamilton porch of my girlhood home. There is no phantasmagorical narrative. Their body language tells a sweet story.    

Don’t talk about my car. You know how guests on “talk shows” like Maury or Jerry Springer will literally break a chair over someone’s head if they mention the former’s mother? That’s how I feel (internally, thus far) when others try to bring up my ride.  

A few seconds of True Blood’s opening credits (set to Jace Everett’s “Bad Things”) are all it takes to set the mood and excite audiences of the intoxicating vampire drama, which returns for a fifth season Sunday (9 p.m., HBO). With flashes of alternating sexual and religious, gritty, Southern-fried, swampy images, this intro perfectly encapsulates what fans love about the show without even mentioning vampires.  

A couple of years ago, I went through depressive funk that led me to withdraw from most social settings. I hermited away not only physically, but also cyberly. I’ve always suffered from some level of social anxiety; now, I was experiencing a kind of social-network anxiety that caused me to ultimately break up with my Facebook page.   

Your black-ass president is a fag hag. A fag hag is usually a woman who co-stars and co-signs in the lives of flamboyantly gay men. Fag hags are pesky cheerleaders buzzing about meaninglessly to little affect; they are quick to appear down with gay (and lesbian … dykes have fag hags, too) causes, but it’s all too much, too little, too late.