Sanaa Lathan on Nip/Tuck

OK, by popular demand, fanboys and girls, here's Sanaa Lathan and Julian MacMahon doing the nasty on Nip/Tuck, as Larry "JR Ewing/I Dream of Jeannie" watches. I thought Larry Hagman was dead. Fellas, note Sanaa's outfit. The dialog is hilarious.

Much easier to take than Rosie on camera...

Rosie O'Donnell: mo'betta on Nip/Tuck...

Every now and then, we get to see white folks clowning beyond the usual trainwrecks like Lindsay Lohan, or K-Fed, Tara Reid et al. Now I've seen it all: Nip Tuck. Not quite Monster's Ball quality, but equally frightening unless you were a fan of Billy Bob's shredded wheat chest. Poor Julian MacMahon. I bet he closed his eyes and imagined he was back on the set of Fantastic Four...ahhh, Jessica Alba... How else would he have stomached this? And she was running her mouth during the whole scene. Good Lord.

If I wanted to see unnatural, comical, nauseating sex-for-money, I'd check out Mike Steele's and Bush/Cheney/Rove's new adult video. Or was that Lex Steele?

And yeah...I hope brotha Isaiah put an ass-whipping on "Dr. McDreamy" Patrick Dempsey on Grey's Anatomy. Maybe order will then be restored to a bizarro universe where (1) Rosie gets porked on-camera by one of America's male sex symbols (and he ain't a closet gay prettyboy), and (2) the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow's oppression, civil rights is someone like Mike Steele claiming he's his own man...

The Novel and the Net

Fanboys and girls, I recommend you peep Slate's net symposia on the Novel and the Net: the future of damn-good fiction in age of moronic text-messagespeak. Panelists critique novels from Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy, Edna O'Brien, Richard Powers; there are intriguing straight-to-net short fiction entries that are marvelous. I love Stephen Metcalf's review of Cold Mountain author Charles Frazier's 13 Moons, which has been made American classic and uber-seller by industry decree (those of us now well versed in the horseshit of the publishing world are at once snickering and cringing at the making of Charles Frazier; needless to say, we culuds don't get that treatment...not even Edward P. Jones...and not even if we write about church ladies feenin' fo' a long-shafted thug). I know regular middle-aged white southern novel-reading men who have never been impressed with Frazier's stuff, and find this faux-Native American mysticism and dance around black slavery a little bizarre. I guess it's a female, New York thang?

Check it out, below. And they call me a hater? Hahahaha

Never have I encountered a work of fiction less willing to levy any psychic
tax on its readers. Sleep easy, dear reader, it assures us, in all its orotund
little murmurs. The past makes no claim on you whatsoever. Sex, food, real
estate—they would still be joyful, if not for all the lawyerly pettifogging of
so-called progress. Spiced jellies—why, they grew on the forest floors, and the
slaves, they laughed like jays!
Really, what a disgrace.

Marketing Fear

Leave it to Gary Trudeau. Often cloyingly old-line liberal, but just as often the dude's as elemental and profound as a Johnny Cash lyric. Check out the full strip's original, October 16 panel once you click the link.

A heads-up--I'm about to get nuts here, but ride along with me, for I'll bring it home...
The fascists, big oil, big pharma, the Christian fundamentalists--they all have bet the farm on this upcoming mid-term election. Our retarded puppet of a President's legacy is riding on it. Do you really think they'll stick to any so-called rules of engagement when power and its attendent arrogance, entitlement--which is the lodestar of this whole mess, not patriotism or even greed--could be ceded? Watch the headlines over the next two weeks, watch the gas prices, watch the Deibold voting machines and beware. I am a Republican and I lament the passing of the Weikers, the Bakers, the Rockefellers, the African American statesmen like Senator Ed Brooke and Bill Coleman, Sr. Even Dubya's grandfather, Prescott Bush, US Senator from Connecticut, was a an enlightened, thoughtful man with progressive, even liberal, views. What happened?

Well, regardless of the outcome, I willmake a good faith attempt at ducking when the conspiracy theories fly. Sometimes Ill have to look up and see what's plausible and what's plain crazy, however. And I do have my own. Yes, fear as a pr/marketing tool is one. Trial lawyers aren't the bane of democracy; advertising and "message"-smiths are. Now you have a millieu where regular people are working harder, communting longer for your little piece of a shinking pie and looking forward to your six days of accrued vacation as you listen to Rush Limbaugh deride Europeans as fags for having six weeks. Your head is down at work while you're watched in your cubicle. Your head his down as you baste in traffic fumes--at 4a.m. because that's what time you have to be on the road to get to work by 8:30a.m. Your head his down in front of the TV because that's the only entertainment or enlightenment you can muster because you are drained. Your head is down as you watch your family pass by with their heads down, them in their on worlds, text-messaging and exchanging ignorant notions of the other people, other neighborhoods, other nations because hey, everyone's head isdown. Better yet, the few people who do raise their heads are slapped down as crackpots, troublemakers, traitors, "non-team players," whatever. And while your head is down, power's being consolidated to make sure it (1) it stays down and (2) you're brainwashed into loving it.

You're even brainwashed into thinking that a southern border of wet toilet paper is a boon to the economy. Hey, the blacks aren't going to wash cars and hang drywall, right? Oh and my favorite as we shade in sci fi/horror for Halloween...when the "end" does come. When Soylent Green's served in Blade Runner type street bars. When everyone's fat and sick and dependent on Pfizer for life itself, "they" will have amassed the resources to afford everything that you're children and grandchildren will have to scratch for as if in a Brazilian slum. They will have the gated...hell, maybe domed communities where the food's plentiful and they have their own air and water. Yep, their own pristine air and water. But hey, it was worth getting rid of "the death tax."

Don't be afraid. Stick your head up. Encourage others to do the same. Read books. Walk. Breathe. Challenge. Create. That will start a revolution, and we won't be prisoners of fear...or marketing.

Our New Soul Sista...Angelina Jolie? W.T.F?

Ambivalence isn't a strong enough word, although it implies two equal forces ripping you in opposite directions. On the one hand, I'm glad there's a film version of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl's life is in pre-production, to be directed by Ed Zwick and financed by Brangelina. It's based on Mariane Pearl's book A Mighty Heart. I'm glad that it shows our so-called "allies" in the war on terror, the lovely gentlemen of the Pakistani securty forces, as the two-faced scum they are, and of course takes a swipe or two at Dubya. But when I look at Angelina in blackface and with a perm (Mariane Pearl's hair is even kinkier that this), I gotta to stop and say w.t.f?

Zoe Saldana, the black actress du jour (as only one or two sistas are allowed to succeed at once, get all the roles until white Hollywood annoints the next one) stated:

"It's a little troubling that considering the difficulty for women of color to get good roles in
Hollywood, they would get a white woman to play a light-skinned black woman.
What's next? They'll just have the geeks create CGI black people?"

Pretty sharp for a Dominican chica from Queens, eh? The punchline is that Angelina was considering Thandie Newton for the role, but, upon "befriending" Mariane, nobly decided to snag top billing for herself.

On the concreteloop.com site a brother emailed that hey, if Alicia Keyes could act, maybe she could pull it off. I doubt it, and rappers/singers displacing trained black actors is part of the damn problem. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of weightier racial issues in this universe that demand more attention than a white chick playing a black woman (and yes...Mariane Pearl is BLACK. Don't let her Tiger Woods-esque rundown of her racial make up distract you. And when you look at her nose and hair, hell...it ain't even close). But this is an indicia of the marketing culture's trivialization of race. We get a box office white woman to play a black woman because there aren't any black women who'll justify white folks buying tickets. Can't shrink and lighten Queen Latifah. But why not take a risk? The story, the acting is what's supposedly important, or so Brad and Angelina spout, or is this limousine liberal Hollywood horseshit? But hey, it's Brangelina's money paying for the flick. For goddsakes please stop the King family from selling off the rest of MLK's legacy, otherwise David Hasselhof will be shouting "Free at last..." in the next film version!



Look at my boy Forrest Whitaker, who is likely to win an Oscar playing Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. Yes, they gave him an extra coat of shoepolish to darken him up, but it was the power, menance, charm of Amin that he channelled, interpreted, exuded. Why not give an unknown black woman the chance to show those skills as Mariane Pearl? Or Thandie, or Zoe or hell give Halle Berry something to do besides whine about not having a man. I suppose if the typical Hollywood clown was doing the Last King, he'd have had Michael Clark Duncan play Amin, or worse, make Brad Pitt gain 100 pounds, grow six inches and spray paint him?

Check out these beautiful women of color: Zoe and Thandie and convince me that Angelina is more attractive or a better actress.

Brandon Massey's Latest

[correction fans, it wasn't a copy of a galley of Brandon Massey's latest novel Vicious I'd received. It was The Other Brother]. Will post a review ASAP. However, the prelims indicate that book illustrates why Brandon is not "The Black Stephen King." Stop the pigeonholing, folks, for Brandon is Brandon in his own right--a horror master who will endure with King, Barker, et al (and yes, my girl LA Banks...).

He updated me on the Dark Dreams III timetable, where my story "Mr. Bones" appears. Will link you a sneak peek in my Halloween Post. As previously noted, an assistant producer at Interscope heard my manuscript discussed by a friend of mine (who likewise will remain nameless); now the lads of G-Unit think I attribute the current state of hip-hop to Lucifer. Well...the story takes place at a minstrel show/darkytown review at a theatre in Buffalo, New York, 1893. I'll leave it to you all, come March, to read how it ties into hip-hop.

Brandon Massey's Vicious comes to bookstores on October 24, 2006, or you can pre-order on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.com OK, G-Unit's "Beg for Mercy" [the "clean" radio version] was cool, Fiddy. I swear. Please don't hit me with that baseball bat again, Fiddy...

"Lying is OK 'cause it keeps me safe..."

E-diary of Brian Tallywacker, Charlantaham, Red State, USA,October 10, 2006. Dear Diary:
I'm rolling out with my buddies from InaTech Billing Systems & Truck Ignitions on Saturday to play as many holes as possible before the rain. We all live in the same neighborhood--Fox Chase Glen Manor Woods, all pretty brick and glass and we got our trucks and our wives, bless 'em: Sydney, Cissy, Sloan, Mary Kate they do NOT have to work outside of the home. Quality of life, folks! We all worship at the North Side Baptist Liberty Coliseum & Convention Center. Yeah, Cissy piles Brian, Jr., Emma, Katelin, Fatelin, Aiden, Jaden & the baby in the Expedition and we all drive a mile to the services, just like we drive a mile to the Piggly Wiggly and it only takes about an hour! Cheez, why do these folks on the south side...you know, black people, whine so much about having to take the bus? The little Spanish fellows me and Scot hire to do the lawns for the homeowners association, they dont complain! Why can't these folk be like my black neighbor...man he is so cool. I say "What up, dude!" That's be Buck O'Black, all-pro middle linebaker for the PantherHawks and the pride of Auburn U! He doesn't sit there and harp on t those lazy folks who brought Hurricane Katrina on themselves! Yeah baby...he just wants to whip the Saints asses in the Dome again! Gooooo PantherHawks! His friends are so cool, too. Aw man--I love those girls with their big booties who come over in those cars, but you know, Buck always asks our permission about the parking and the noise...and guess what...he's always at Northside just praying away come Sunday morning. I never see his wife, though.

Well, I am pissed...you know, on fire about this Foley thing. These damn liberals and their hack jobs! Assassins, all. Pastor Joel Falwell told us to foregive the good Congressman, and he even had that black preacher with the big helicopter, Reverend T.D. Jacks, come in and pray for Mr. Foley, Mr. Hastert and for our President. They say he lied about Iraq and the 9-11 terorists being there. My little brother Brodie's a Marine out of Camp Lejeune by God, and he's still over there, looking for those al Qaidas and he'll find them, 'cause we don't cut and run. And so what if our President kept stuff from us, then there're things we don't need to know! So what good men kept quiet about another fighter, a champion, Mark Foley, is OK by me! There are things that are private, and shouldn't be aired. Things like homosexuality. I'm starting to rethink all that. See--I am tolerant. Lord I did some things when I was Rush Chairman at Sigma Gamma Smegma Fraternity, Inc. I don't want folks to know about, and what about those awful rumors about Cissy and Buck O'Black's roommate Big Tyrone when she was at Auburn? Cissy says better to put it all in the past, as Pastor Joel says. Visualize that new 8 ton family SUV, rolling up to the lake! Bill O'Reilly and Rush said it true the other day. Lyin' keep us safe. That way, we dont have a lot of follishness inside our heads, and can just go to work, relax with our families. Besides, I saw on Fox News a picture of the fellow Mr. Foley hooked up with in 2000:

Does that look like a child to you? Hell no!!! That's a man! Leave the Congressman alone, and leave Mr. Hastert alone. They were silent to keep us safe. And yeah...that's a man all right. A damn good-looking man...I gotta go y'all. See you in the pews Sunday...or maybe Brian, Jr.'s soccer practice before we head on over to Applebees for family dinner...

$1.65 Billion for YouTube? I'll take North Korea instead...

You owe it to yourself to click on this link: Spock's Crib. In the future, thanks to the tools at Google, stuff like thid might cost you, or you'll be assailed by pop-ups? Or pehaps it'll no longer be COOL? I'd like to think I'm an intelligent person, but $1.65Billion--doesn't this harken back to the Dot.com fiasco when a bunch of Starbucks-drinking JCrew/Urban Outfitter-wearing tools were going public with nothing but a mainframe and folding chairs as hard assets? How does one value a figure like this? Gee, a billion bucks for an idea? Potential? Frankly my "not cool" comment wasn't just a facetious slap. If human-net nature follows it's usual course, the type of people who (1) invented YouTube and (2) used YouTube and (3) enjoyed YouTube will move onto new frontiers. On Google, you will no longer be able to hear Spock say to Kirk, "Yeah White Boy...it's a non-fat latte! Sheeeee-it!"
And after you laugh your pecker off watching Charlie Murphy interpret Spock, come back and tell me what should be done about North Korea. "What should be done." Sounds so paternal, doesn't it, as if North Korea is your teenage son who just gets a hit of meth and totals the family SUV...on purpose. He just wants to be heard. So sit down with him, one-on-one. No auntie China or granddad Russia, no ex-girlfriend Seoul for whom he pines and tattooes on his arm. No Mr. Japan, the gym teacher who abused him in the shower. Just you and him. He craves discipline, borders. Blonde hookers like High Hefner's "wives" on that silly reality show. Or "New York" from Flavor of Love. Tell him he can have everything he wants as long as he stays in his room and doesn't bother folks. Tell him you'll love him. And then tell him you'll kill him to the last greazy hair on his head if he f***ks up, or even looks like he'll f***k up. Maybe sink his iPod in the toilet bowl. Pretty simple, huh? I'd say we have more to fear from Pakistani technicians simply handing over free samples, than from this m-f. See, he charges too much, he's rude to the customers...especially darker folks. No returns, not even with receipts. The stuff is always stale or looks like it came from Costco. Yeah--sound familiar? Jusy kidding...

Interviewing a Pulitzer Prize Winner

Saturday at Borders in Largo, Maryland I was the moderator in a colliquy with Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones. Marie Arana, Washington Post Bookworld editor and herself a National Book Award finalist for her memoir American Chica, posed questions and teased Mr. Jones out of his shell. He's eccentric, sure. Monastic asa description for his life is an understatement. No furniture. A small, old TV. He takes the bus everywhere. Has the same apartment in DC he's rented for years. Yet now I know what it may have been like to light a clay pipe with Cooper and Melville, mix a mojito for Hemingway, swill some bourbon with Fitzgerald. Maybe share a coffee with Hughes, an uneasy yet forthwright couple of words with Wright in a cab? Or just a hug from Zora. When I show my grandchildren his books, the inevitable inscriptions on library walls, I can tell them with pride that I was among the lucky few in this life who got to share some words and a even a few laughs with a hero. The man grew up in abject poverty in the Nation's Capital. His mother couldn't read or write; she was a maid for five decades. I wish he was a hero to more folks, especially the young...

RIP Cleopatra Jones...

Tamara Dobson died yesterday in her native Baltimore, at Keswick Hospice. She was the daughter of a prominent local preacher/civil rights activist. And she is a heroine who must be re-discovered.

I always thought Tamara Dobson was the prototype, and Pam Grier was the wannabe. But I was a kid when these blaxploitation films reached their apex. Looking at them with fresh adult eyes, Tamara was the kick-ass goddess, Pam was the sex goddess. Oh, if you looked at Pam Grier wrong or you killed/made a junkie out of/turned out, etc. her little sister/brother/boyfriend/husband, that meant your ass, and often, your private part sliced into an olive jar. Pam is a pop culture icon, and despite the cheesecake (oh man, check her out in my favorite slave-ploitation film Drum...makes Mandingo look like Disney), a good actress who still gets starring roles from Jackie Brown, to The L Word, when white women her age are having to play grandma on sitcoms.

Yet Tamara, ahhhh...6'2"...she represented "controlled" violence. She wasn't an avenger like Pam in Coffy. She was usually a detective. Or a gangsta-girl who soured on crime. Or a spy who's cover was a fashion model. Indeed she was the mold for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. She was regal, intelligent, icy. She always could outsmart "The Man" just as surely as she could kick his butt. Instead of plastic packaged chicks like Beyounce, or rhinestone "don't snitch" thuggettes like Lil' Kim, she is who I hope little girls cheer on the screen. Rediscover her. Say a prayer for her. the world was a cooler place with her in it.

FYI, for you crunchy-granola-dreadlock-Jill Scott/Common/Erikah lovers who ALSO may like blaxploitation, try Martha Southgate's amazing novel Third Girl From the Left, a marvelous story of a young girl's reflections on her mother...an ex-"blaxploitation" actress who never commanded Tamara's stature. Inspiring. And it's a finalist for several book awards.

Dennis Hastert, meet Omar Little, yo...

So Dennis Hastert says no way, I'm not gonna quit! We gotta ethics investigation now and that will clear the air. See his buddy Dubya cooing with delight in support of Dennis' moxie?

Well I say step, Fat Man! I have another candidate for Speaker who'll bring order, decorum to the House. Stop this partisan gridlock. Omar Little. Stick up man. Stone Killa. Nemesis of every drug dealer in B'mo'City. And he's black (meaning the GOP won't to bribe Uncle Tom black college presidents or greedy faith-based cash-grubbing mega-preachers any more to curry favor). He's also gay, but the GOP must be the inclusive, compassionate, tolerant party now that Mark Foley has come out. Bonus: Omar only likes men, not youngsters. Muscular Latino men with neat cornrows, to be exact. Maybe one of those Cuban Diaz-Balart fellas will catch his fancy?

Yo Omar, put the twelve-gauge dukey stick on my boy Dennis' head and say, "Git the f**k out, sorry m-f! The Party don't need no more October Surprises, son! An' when I'm finished with yo' ass--literally and figuratively, m-f--I'm gonna smoke that dude Bob Woodward ."

Omar comin'! Omar comin'! Run!

Darker Mask Contributors

Dakila Divina of Parade Magazine didn't have the full list of our Darker Mask authors. Here they are: Walter Mosley Tananarive Due Steven Barnes Naomi Hirahara Eric Jerome Dickey Peter Spiegelman Mike Gonzalez Jerry Rodriguez "LA" Banks Gar Anthony Haywood Alexandra Sokoloff Ann Nocenti Wayne Wilson Reed Farrel Coleman Dossel Young Victor LaValle Myself & Gary Phillips.

Artists to follow...

If you're in Maryland Saturday, come see me at leading author panels at the Capital Bookfest, 9am-7pm, in and around Borders, the Boulevard at Cap Centre, Largo.

Mike & Lex: the Steeles Take Washington!

Lexington Steele and Michael Steele with their favorite fluffers in the District of Columbia recently. Don't be fooled. Vote for Cardin, folks. And, hold your nose, press that stilted Diebold voting machine screen for O'Malley over Bahama Bob. I just want to see Kwame Brown as Lt. Gov. If you're in Virginia--yes, George Allen is the second most glaring example of the old Medioc-cracy. The first is in the photo w/Mike. Jim Webb's a self-made toughguy. A sort of McCain for the Dems. (That is, McCain before he lost his damn mind).

New Comic Flicks

OK, rumors confirmed: apparently the Sub-Mariner film is a go, to be directed by Terminator 3's director Jon Mostow; no one knows who will play Namor. Please...not Matt McConaughey. Makes no sense! As stated in the post below, ol'Shellhead, The Invincible Iron Man, will indeed be played by Robert Downey, Jr. Crap! Ghost Rider with Nick Cage comes this summer. The Green Lantern comes Summer '08, as the DC-related heroes seem content with toons rather than live action, unless you're Christian Bale as Batman. Guess who's The Joker. Heath Ledger! Yeah, I guess Heath will snuggle the Dark Knight under his cape, undo his utility belt and...and then Batman will cry "I wish I knew how to quit you!" Brokeback Bat Cave...coming to the Rave near you. hahahaha

But riddle me this, and speaking of dark knights, both the Green Lantern and Iron Man had brothas take the ring/armor at some point. Indeed the GL's new incarnation is black in the Justice League toons. Can't we thus PLEASE see a brotha on-screen? It's crazy enough watching all of the Spider Man's, then the FF and seeing no people of color at all as the superheroes and villians roll around New York!!! So maybe there're no blacks or Hispanics around the Baxter Building mid-town, but are you serious when you say Peter Parker's got NO West Indians living there in Queens? His school was full of white kids with NO accents. Not even a stray Italian kid with a Mets t-shirt?

FYI to me-self: the dude who directed the FF, and the upcoming FF: the Rise of the Silver Surfer, is a brotha. Tim Story. See, we can use the bama stuff like Barbershop (which he directed as well) as a jumping point. Look at Antoine Fuqua, Carl Franklin. Creative, visionary brothas. Gina Prince-Blythewood's gone from doing Terry McMillan adaptions to the film version of Wally Lamb's literary bestseller I Know This Much Is True. Come on...Fuqua needs to do Spider Man...

Patriotic Pedophile

Rep. Mark Foley's in great company with other right-wing pedophiles: Julius Caesar and Phillip of Macedon (Alexander the Great's daddy). The trouble is, neither dictator kept their perversions on the down-low. Foley went on on America's Most Wanted to pander to John Walsh and all the NASCAR Dads and Desperate Housewives about how tough the laws he advocated would be on sickos...like Foley. Foley's been an integral part of the Republican Right's war on what consenting, responsible adults do in their bedrooms, on gay marriage (and thus, de-humanizing a portion of the population that in many communities comprise the most educated, productive citizens...folks who just want to be committed to one another for life!).

Hypocrisy, lies, propoganda are the public policy issues here that almost reach the magnitude of the awful sickness of Foley's. And now his lawyer Roth says the man's gay. A nod to the Rove playbook, where Foley tries so hard to salvage the GOP's image? Forget the booze defense. Hey, as the conservatives and the Roman Catholic hierarchy say, gay=molester. So maybe now Foley says "Take it from me, 'cause I'm gay and a molester!" Or better yet, I WAS molested. Hmmm...wasn't he one of those tools who always said that criminals should be punished and not treated? So who cares about your namby-pamby awful past? Lock'em up! Didn't he violate the same kinds of laws he's been pushing in Congress, dealing with the Net and contact w/kids?

Look, Hastert and the whole GOP bunch knew. Hell yes Fox News knew and the papers in South Florida did, too. But the rules are different for "our folk," the douchebags in power. Thanks conservatives--the very Hollywood you rail against has now been proven right, first with the NSA and all that lovely destruction of innocent folks' privacy and civil liberties in Will Smith's Enemy of the State..and now with The Handmaid's Tale and "V" for Vendetta.

I'm sure the ravenous tools of the right are caucusing now to figure out who to attack, the script for each pinheaded talkshow host, from Rush to O'Reilly to this new clown Glen Beck, the FoxNews spin. Lawd--didn't they just have Bob Woodward to squash and punish?

I yearn for John McCain to stop his flirtation with these facist loons and lead the GOP back to the days of Everett Dirksen, Ed Brooke & Bill Coleman, Nelson Rockefeller & Lowell Weicker, even Howard Baker. Hell, I'd even settle for Daddy Bush & Bob Dole now...

Iron Man: Robert Downey, Jr?

Another Marvel movie? Iron Man, May '08! I loved the old cartoons, made in Canada, circa 1967. Look, I even liked the Fantastic Four flick (Jessica Alba as Sue Storm did help...). But Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark--w.t.f.? I guess everything is hedged with the cash from Spider Man 3, 4, 5? I think the X-men are pretty much done so who's next?

Well, barring Ben Affleck mucking up Daredevil again, I have heard a rumor that The Sub-Mariner is in the works. Who to play Namor, he of the Mr. Spock ears and winged feet? Have mercy, someone said Matthew McConaughey was signed on. Double w.t.f! Doesn't Namor have a brooding, Euro-fag sort of vibe? Perhaps a depressed, violent Antonio Banderas? Then again, the salt water would give Matt a needed cleansing. Namor has more of an Asian look to him. How about Ken Watanabe, the dude from Memoirs of a Geisha and The Last Samurai. But if you gotta go white--and white fills the box office--I'd say Clive Owen, sans body hair and moles.

I bet they'll be a "green" theme to the Sub-Mariner. I can hear it now on rightie talk radio and these crazy-ass blogs: Stan Lee capitulates to Al Gore!!! Hey leave Stan alone. After all, he was the one who pushed for Jessica Alba in the FF. Shut up...

What is a Terrorist?

Look at these icons of American History. Nat Turner. John Brown. Terrorists? Martyrs? Lunatic serial killers? Cultists? Symbols of pride and moral clarity? I guess you could find folks who could shove them in any one of those boxes. So as our President and Henry Kissinger and Dick Cheney et al. frame this war of good versus evil, liberal wankers versus loyal patiotic Americans, can we say that Nat and Brown were the Mohammad Atta and Osama Bin laden of their time? After all, not until Osama Bin Laden have single individuals and their acts of violence had such a profound transformative effect on the course of our laws, our political structure, our culture.

"We did what had to be done!" Cryptic, isn't it? That's what Nat Turner said at his trial upon recanting a phony coerced confession. As misunderstood and misquoted as Nat is, he remains a colossus in black America's own little pantheon. Could he be no better than a suicide bomber? Is he an INSURGENT as in Iraq, dealing with the ambivelance of the very people he wanted to free (and recall, ambivalence doesn't mean you don't care, it means your heart and /or brain are jerked in opposite directions)? Why did he go on a "rampage" with his followers, and not just escape north and onto Canada? Perhaps at some point he saw the futility of becoming an American Spartacus, for even Spartacus could not resist mighty Rome. He saw the killing, burning, hacking, beating and fear--the FEAR--in whites as the ends to the means. In essence, you give those who have all the power what they fear the most: Powerlessness. Brutality becomes the answer to brutality. Thus he exposed for all to see a conflict that rages to this day: America's mythology versus reality. Note, the Virginia Legislature, along with that of border states like Kentucky and Maryland entertained resolutions ABOLISHING slavery (replacing it with serf-like peonage and low wages, for sure) as a direct result of the revolt. But, like Rome, opted instead to increase legal oppression of blacks and enforce this on a national level in Congress and through the White House. I bet you thought that "State's Rights" was a Southern thang, eh? Nope, it was a Northern thing as these states, even racist New York, thried to prevent enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act (take a look at the Rendition Clause of the Constitution, plus Full Faith and Credit--it's still in there, folks! I say take that out before we start talking about erasing the civil rights of fags and dykes...). States Rights became the Southern cry when the shoe was on the other foot--when basic human and civil rights for blacks was on the table. Again, why can't people just be honest about this stuff? Does it dimish one's power and standing to admit hey, it ain't about right and wrong, it ain't about God vs. the Devil--it's aboutpower, who's ox is getting gored? ;-)

John Brown was another individual who changed America forever--greasing that log flume ride into a horror show of bloody civil war, shoved along by Nat. From Kansas to Harpers Ferry, the man's terrible myth was scarier than his actual deeds. Indeed, the rednecks he battled in Kansas had murdered and looted far more any of Brown's real privations. But he was a symbol, like Nat Turner, and the potential of what he could do, coupled with that symbolism, was what struck fear into those in power. Power being, of course, the South, which ran the national government directly or indirectly through "doughface" clown Presidents like poor Franklin Pierce or James Buchanan. Yet this man dies a martyr. And his place in history isn't even as ambivalent as Nat Turner's. He is a symbol of righteous struggle for a moral cause.

Is Hamas or Hezbollah's cause any less compelling? Are the passions and history similar in any way? I'm just asking. I suppose in some Red States I'd be a traitor or over-thinking fruit for putting that out there. I don't think I could find a NASCAR Dad or Desparate Housewife who truly can name the author of the second-worst terrorist attack in US History? He was a patriotic, all American clean shaven WHITE BOY named Tim McVeigh. Of course, we don't racially profile clean shaven, GOP-voting white boys, even when they buy a ton of chemical fertilizer. (as a sidebar, there are plenty white Muslims--look at Bosnia--and some of the worst hijackers and urban terrorists in the 1970s were blond blue-eyed Bader-Meinhoff and Red Brigade operatives working with the PLO, etc. Watch out for that little old white grandma, then who breezes through the metal detector then. That Poligrip might just be C-4...)



Look, I have a neighbor, now celebrating Yom Kippur, with an uncle who boasts killing four British Marines with a Sten submachine gun in 1947, during a prison break. This same guy blew up a truck which was filled with goats and two Arab farmers. The attack was meant to "send a message" to Arabs living in Palestine that Israel was there to stay, and that no Jew would be herded off to die ever again, as what happened in the German (notice I didn't say Nazi) concentration camps just a few years earlier. Apparently these victims were just farmers, both lived side by side with Jews in Palestine for generations, both supported partition (which created Israel in 1947, shepherded by a woefully unlauded African American, Dr. Ralph Bunche ).
Was this guy's uncle a terrorist? I'm sure most Jews and many Americans in toto would say no. Why? Maybe because the difference between a terrorist and a rebel, a patriot, a hero depends on who is in power, on who writes history?

John Brown and Nat Turner are heroes to me, just as John Wayne and Rev. Jerry Falwell and Oliver North might be another person's heroes, or Bin Laden is the hero of some unemployed teenager living in a hovel on the outskirts of Cairo. Or some thug like "Marlowe" on The Wire is the hero of another disillusioned kid living on Aisquith Street in West Baltimore. The trick is, how do you reconcile their violence, ignorance, destructiveness. Many folks, be they evangelicals or ex-Marines or rednecks or radical Muslims or nililistic "corner kids" in any US city don't have or want the mental tools to critically assess that paradox. Either way, it's got shit to do with "good versus evil" on any real, gut-to-nutsack level. Think about it...

Octopussies

I'm vexed, terribly vexed (movie buffs--that was Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus in Gladiator) by the bizarre reference

giant OCTOPUS, NOT A FRIGGIN' SQUID. Jules Verne turned squids into a cliche 150 years ago!!! Second, what about the new twist on the "captive scientist" thing? Or the metaphor of the monster of slavery? Nope. I guess I should be thankful for the positive review. After all, at least the wonk didn't use race code for the characters: "edgey," "gritty," "sassy." These would be the same people who'd say "Maybe Ludicris could play the main character in the movie? DMX? How about the Rza?"

Okay, so I'm not vexed. But this represents the lighter side of the neverending combat with the pigeonholing of black authors. Will it end? As Joaquin Phoenix to Russell Crowe: "Why can't you just die?"

Welcome back, Brotha Powell...

If only I could clone Lyndon Baines Johnson from a bone fragment and turn him loose on (1) the idiots in his own Democratic Party and (2) the GOP's rabid "heavy thinker" righties, so-called "real" Christians and other such clowns. What he'd do with Colin Powell, now that'd be priceless...

"Colon..."
"Cah-lin, Mr. President."
"Sorry there, son...I keepthink' 'bout mah bowels. Anyhows, Colon, I've readin' this here article in the Washington Post Magazine http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/washpostmagazine/index.html by this filly Karen DeYoung...kinda man-lookin' chicky...why the f***k can't these here women journalists look good...yew see that Jessica Simpson? Whoooo-weeee, I bet them f***kin' Kennedy boys be all over that p***y if she were 'round in '62. An' that colored girl who cain't sing?"
"Beyounce, sir?"
"Naw...the young'un, Christina Millian. Give a mesquite stiffy jus' thinkin' 'bout her lil' brown caboose..."
"Um...you wanted to talk about the article sir?"
"Yep. Colin let's thinky-here 'bout this quote:

'Still mulling over the situation a week later with a visitor in his dimly lit office, he criticized a persistent White House machismo that took aim at "anything . . . that suggests any weakness in the [administration's] position," regardless of common sense. That, and what he saw as a never-ending effort to humble him personally.
"There are people who would like to take me down," he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the White House. "It's been the case since I was appointed. By take down, I mean 'keep him in his place'. . . And there are those who, whether it was me or anyone else, just love somebody getting in trouble, because it's usually to the detriment of the person getting in trouble and to the advantage of someone else.'

Son, if that don't lay the fence open for the bull ta run through...ah don't know what else these here weeny-p***sies in mah party need to press home to these NASCAR dads and Desperate Housewife housewives what a bunch of bootscrapin's your old crew is. From Rove and Cheney to them horsef***kers who run Fox News! Can I get Bill Moyers ta brief you yer public announcement that yew've become a Democrat? Bill's mah press secretary in the old days...them was the as fat as Ann-Margaret's titty. You familiar with Ann-Margaret, son?"
"Yes, um...very pretty, but look, Mr. President--"
"But look nothin', son. I got in my goody bag all the mess Rove and Card and Roger Ailes was gonna 'leak' on your wife Alma's depression, lotta mess on yew personally...yew'd no longer be their nigger, son. Pardon the word, but since I rammed and I do mean mean rammed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through, I guess other than that faggot Bill Clinton I got the right to use that word...as a reference, of course..."
"Whatever."
"Well, yew gonna play ball or what? It was men like yew who stood up ta Joe McCarthy. Hell, I never had the nutsack ta stand up to the Klan in West Texas...but I learned to depend on men lak yew. "
"I'll think about it, sir."
"Ya got five minutes, boy..."

Fantasy isn't an outlet for our pent-up yearnings, frustrations. It's a safety-valve. That isn't a fine distinction...