Friday, February 29, 2008
Friday Funnies--Go Speed Racer!
This movie is either going to be supremely silly or really good. Either way, say goodbye to films about real people/well crafted stories until next Fall. Inspired casting, though--Christina Ricci as Trixi! And who else but John Goodman as Pops. I swear the dude who plays Racer X looks just like the cartoon character, and is that Snake Oiler? I'm just glad Samuel L Jackson isn't in this hahahahaha.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Green Demon Takes My Soul...
Absinthe, that jade essence of ainse and wormwood with the licorice tinge, is legal again in the U.S. Frankly, it never should have been illegal, and the whole thing was a massive plot by the French wine industry prior to World War One. Yes, French wine, like McDonald's was having a bit of a p.r. and sales problem, and absinthe was gaining ground. Well, the liqeur of authors and artists has, like light-skinned black men, made the comeback and Thank the Lord!!! I have tasted the Green Demon many times. Indulged in the ritual--the sugar cube, the dripping ice cold water. Makes you feel so artsy. You're Hemmingway and Faulkner, taking a break from bourbon-drinking. You're Richard Wright in Paris. You're Ed Murrow sneaking a sip whilst Nazi bombs fall on London and you're getting ready to broadcast back home. And why not absinthe? As I've shit on Ralph Nader, street lit and street sex/romance in African American books, US actors who can't seem to be in a movie without CGI and Seth Rogen while Europeans play us better than ourselves--I figure it's my new snobby-ass drink of choice (after bourbon, of course)!
Can't get it in ABC-store dry Montgomery County, so I'll have to get creative with friends. Get me a bottle worth almost a month's cable-internet bill and start trippin' The Green Demon awaits. And don't none-ya spooks dare ask me if it's melon-flavored Alize or I'll smack you...
Monday, February 25, 2008
Monday Musings
Okay, There Will Be Blood didn't win Best Picture (see 2/22 post), but if you're gonna lose, lose to fellow Princeton Tigers the Coen Brothers! Now, as for the all these foreigners who won the statues, lawd have mercy....sadly we've seen the end of real American acting in Hollywood. Interesting social/political commentary there when you examine the type of roles for which these folks won (I don't count the French girl who won). Anyone care to venture how?
Stay tuned for my interview with Mat Johnson over his contribution to The Darker Mask and of course his groundbreaking graphic novel Incognegro (see previous posts). And check out my partner Gary Phillips' new work, High Rollers, published by Mark Waid and the folks at Boom! Studios (Mark's the award winning writer of iconic Fantastic Four, Justice League and many, many stories in the comic realm).
Tina Fey returned to Saturday Night Live and endorsed Hillary Clinton. OK. About as much there dap as Fred Armisen playing Barack. Then again, Fred did do a great Prince. I was truly impressed, however, with Mike Huckabee on the "Weekend Update" segment. He might not be as "fundamentalist" as folks think. Be real--he 's as much a populist as Obama. Even more so, as he can hide behind the anti-gay, anti-abortion stuff. My view: the right wingers and GOP need another terrorist attack and a couple of more New York Times articles on McCain to gel the troops--otherwise game fricking over come November. Even if Hillary's the nominee.
Ralph Nader's lost his damn mind. Even his diehard pals have learned their lesson from 2000. I am saddened to see a man who's dedicated his life, literally, to the public interest and has made us safer, made government and big business more accountable to human beings...now descend into self-absorption and lunacy. But yes, paradigms are shifting. You saw it in the initial "McCain madness." You saw it with Tavis Smiley, or Jesse's need to be relevant. Scary when your voice suddenly isn't the only one intelligent people want to hear, and even the ignorant are abandoning you.
Finally, several apologists for current insipid nonsense in African American "literature" have challenged me that we are not being dumbed-down. I beg them to consider Susan Jacoby's piece in the Washington Post last Sunday...oh and re-check Cora Daniels' still bestselling Ghetto Nation (Cora's interviewed on this blog) and Bill Cosby's Come On People, and get back to me on that view that things are just great, cool? Look, just because brain candy sells and pays your bills, doesn't mean you must be part of the machine condemning us all to get fat, toothless and diabetic. "Choice" is illusory in this anti-intellectual, marketing and hedge fund world of ours.
Stay tuned for my interview with Mat Johnson over his contribution to The Darker Mask and of course his groundbreaking graphic novel Incognegro (see previous posts). And check out my partner Gary Phillips' new work, High Rollers, published by Mark Waid and the folks at Boom! Studios (Mark's the award winning writer of iconic Fantastic Four, Justice League and many, many stories in the comic realm).
Tina Fey returned to Saturday Night Live and endorsed Hillary Clinton. OK. About as much there dap as Fred Armisen playing Barack. Then again, Fred did do a great Prince. I was truly impressed, however, with Mike Huckabee on the "Weekend Update" segment. He might not be as "fundamentalist" as folks think. Be real--he 's as much a populist as Obama. Even more so, as he can hide behind the anti-gay, anti-abortion stuff. My view: the right wingers and GOP need another terrorist attack and a couple of more New York Times articles on McCain to gel the troops--otherwise game fricking over come November. Even if Hillary's the nominee.
Ralph Nader's lost his damn mind. Even his diehard pals have learned their lesson from 2000. I am saddened to see a man who's dedicated his life, literally, to the public interest and has made us safer, made government and big business more accountable to human beings...now descend into self-absorption and lunacy. But yes, paradigms are shifting. You saw it in the initial "McCain madness." You saw it with Tavis Smiley, or Jesse's need to be relevant. Scary when your voice suddenly isn't the only one intelligent people want to hear, and even the ignorant are abandoning you.
Finally, several apologists for current insipid nonsense in African American "literature" have challenged me that we are not being dumbed-down. I beg them to consider Susan Jacoby's piece in the Washington Post last Sunday...oh and re-check Cora Daniels' still bestselling Ghetto Nation (Cora's interviewed on this blog) and Bill Cosby's Come On People, and get back to me on that view that things are just great, cool? Look, just because brain candy sells and pays your bills, doesn't mean you must be part of the machine condemning us all to get fat, toothless and diabetic. "Choice" is illusory in this anti-intellectual, marketing and hedge fund world of ours.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Friday Funnies
This little ditty from arguably the best movie (check the Oscars Sunday) in five years has been the pundit catch phrase of 2008. God help us, I even heard Shaq say it (before the Lakers smashed Phoenix). Enjoy...
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Guest Blogger on Mamalicious
I participated in the 32 day Black History Month Blog-a-thon on Mamalicious. Thanks to Deesha, Yvette & Crew. Check out the month's worth of blood and gold, and my post. The gang of folk who range from well-meaning souls who derive their foundation from inclusion and the Black Arts Movement, to out and out morons, say we shouldn't "debate" this dumbing down of our cultural and history legacy within the current thrust of black popular fiction and non-fiction (hell, let's toss in some poetry and 80% of the music out there). It's counterproductive. It's tired. It's...yikes...hating. I try to put that in a cultural/historical perspective. Soulja Boy ain't Scott Joplin, folks, so stop the inapt analogies. Making money and everyone reading "something" is a chimera. Hey, so then let's stop talking about the Chinese giving cash to the Sudanese so they can massacre black people. Let's say g'head to the Marlboro Academy and Alize Charter School.
What will our black history be? It won't be Jesse Owens and Joe Louis--it'll be clowns like "ocho-cinco" Chad Johnson of the Bengals, or Mike Vick. Not on my watch. Not on mine. Heed that...
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Earth to Tavis...
Is it the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, wherein every one of us who attains some level of notoriety has to manifest an ego the size of one of Dick Cheney's 'roids to mentally compensate? Tavis, time to act more like a tan Edward R. Murrow than a skinny black Boss Hogg. This Obama thing is a joke. It will backfire on you, plus what price Hillary and Bill's support when a huge chunk of your people now think you are a baby? You are acting like a common huckster. The State of the Black Union happens every year, like Black Caucus, you take photo-ops, folks get to postering, nothing gets solved or even addressed. But you do sell more books and DVDs!
Come on bruh--wouldn't it have been great to see Michelle Obama and Hillary go at it? Talk about ratings and water-cooler skuttlebutt. Better than Dancing with The Stars or who clowned themselves on Flavor of Love 3!!! But nooooooo. Earth to all of you im-poh-nant black people, from pastors to activists (even you, Eddie Long and TD Jakes)--the time has passed when folk like Barack must come "pay homage" or kiss the rings of self-styled potentates and pooh-bahs. You should be out and lving lean: donating your honoraria millions or your untaxable tithes and rolling up your sleeves every damn dawn. Building, fixing, salving, educating, caring, exhorting, teaching hands-on. But hey, gotta have the show. The folks love the show. If problems were addressed, even solved, there'd be no show. And what good is that to you, Tavis?
Friday, February 15, 2008
In Bookstores Now: The Future?
The new graphic novel from DC/Vertigo by my boy Mat Johnson of Drop and Hunting in Harlem, The Great Negro Plot fame. Art by Warren Pleece. See Mat's work in The Darker Mask (pre-order on Amazon). The future? Yes. Literature merged with visual narrative. Cerebral, lurid, tactile. Hell even Cornell West's got a blurb on the book. And not dumbed-down,-eh Ron Kavanaugh (the Mosaic Magazine editor doth protest the debate over thug/hooker lit and nonfiction a bit too much in his blog, betraying either true feelings or a need not to piss off advertisers...well, you know how Mat feels about it)? Well, that's Mat on the cover, playing "Zane Pinchback," high yella reporter, gone deep undercover to unearth the nastiest of the nastier trends back pre-World War Two America. Come back later for the full, biased, fawning, brimming with goddamn pride review...
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Save Darfur! As long as I get my royalty check...
I have long contended that China represents a bigger threat to our way of life than all the rag-headed, poppy-addled Islamic miscreants and brain washed, unwashed grad school dropouts flocking to the mountains of Pakistan combined. We have a government which floats on a sea of cheap Chinese money, we have businessmen and funds bathing in that sea as a source of investment, of largesse, of places to outsource. Consumers flock to Wal Mart, which, more than any godless liberal, destroyed Main Street USA and American small business, yet waves the flag as we gorge ourselves on cheap Chinese crap. They are stealing our technology...or plain buying it from folks who otherwise indeed wave the flag on a regular basis whilst cutting jobs, cutting healthcare benefits, wrecking truth in the media through consolidation, greed. They have the largest army in the world, nukes, a burgeoning navy...and they pollute this earth in tenor and quantity that'd make a West Virginia chemical plant operator blush. It's all powered by oil. Sudanese, largely. And in return they give the Arab/Muslim government in Khartoum goodies, cash. The result is the slaughter of millions by arms or disease or famine. First in the south, then Darfur. Black people, dying. And we go on stalking them like Sally stalks Linus, lovingly. The Red Chinese? Lord what would John Foster Dulles say?
Steven Spielberg, George Clooney and other liberals have been bashing all of us and George Bush over the head with Darfur. Clooney's documentary on HBO may even win some awards. Yet something terrible sniffs at their rear ends. The animal called hypocrisy. Maybe a different breed than the liberal hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton's crew and fellow travellers in Hollywood, on Emily's List, The daily Kos, among coons in the Congressional Black Caucus and other old guard leaders, etc. Yes, complain, shame people in feeding the starving children. But lawdy, say nothing about China. It is unfair to tag Bush with this genocide. Indeed, conservatives were on the cusp of illuminating both the older horror in the south Sudan and then Darfur. But we wrote them off as Israeli stooges or anti-Islamic, or covetous of that precious "blood"--oil. Bush's hard-on for the Chinese cannot be discounted, but nor did he soft-pedal or ignore Darfur. No that was we liberals, we black folks who back burnered that but for a shed tear and occasion check to an NGO or other relief agency. Though in the background, strange bedfellows were hooking up, such as former Senator Bill Frist and actress/advocate Mia Farrow. Click on her name for her organization.
Spielberg took a job as Artistic Director for the billion dollar boondoggle and PR bullshit show called the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. According to Farrow and othe sources he cautioned Clooney to go easy on the Chinese within the HBO special's editorializations. Yet all the while both still advocated for Darfur relief as now thousands are in peril within Chad and war is brewing along that border with Sudan. Mrs. Nat Turner and I attended a panel at the National Press Club, televised on C-SPAN, with Sen. Frist, Ms. Farrow (I tried to get Woody Allen, Rosemary's Baby and Frank Sinatra out of my head as we spoke!), Julius Coles of Africare and an investigative reporter with The Economist. All were in agreement that China as patron state could stop the terror immediately. All were in agreement that hypocrisy reigned, and it wasn't all this time on the UN, or the Bush Administration, or the European Union, or African Union, or even Muslim states. We liberals could turn the mirror on ourselves. Well suddenly, Steven's changed his mind. Click for the Chinese reaction. Perhaps Mia did it, within the rubric of pressure and a well-placed hint of Olympic boycott. Or the Prince of Wales and Prince Edward saying they, unlike Bush, will not attend the Opening Ceremonies?
Time to hip you fanboys & girls to a little story about The Darker Mask. Within its pages and artwork is a story called "Avatar" about a super hero in Darfur, rising from the "Lost Boys" of the south Sudan. In it were some references to China. There are some who felt that this would jeopardize foreign sales in China. Big bucks to be made in China. Our supply side neocon government would fall into deficit ruin without it, right? Did we change the story? You'll have to buy the book come summer and see if I was just as much a hypocrit as too many liberals, or just as much ignorant and idolent as too many other African Americans...
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
More Paradigm Shifting--Screw the Black Caucus
I'm all into shifting paradigms. Makes life interesting, shakes dumbasses up. Even that pedophile-for-fifteen year old black girls on our nickels, Thomas Jefferson, once said that a little revolution now and again is a good thing. I've been espousing it in African American prose like a rash throughout this blog...and in politics.
I'm no talking about Obama and Hillary now, or even McCain and the queerish, silent civil war in the GOP. I'm talking about my congressman, Albert Wynn. Yeah, Fat Albert bit the dust in the primary...FINALLY...at the hands of Donna Edwards. And it bodes ill for a lot of people in the Congressional Black Caucus, for individuals like Tavis Smiley, and yeah--even for our own shuffling, slurring legend, Marion Barry. Why?
In 1992, the CBC doubled in size due in part to gerrmandering new "black" districts. Amid much black tie fanfare, I recall that night when I and the vicious high yella gnome who was the former Mrs. Nat Turner attended the CBCF Gala...and it was like Dr. Zhivago before the Bolsheviks and famine put a foot in everyone's ass, including their own. File that allegory, fanboys and girls, 'cause there's gonna be a quiz later. Slick Willie and Hillary were there, all the captains and doyennes from Bob Johnson and Earl Greaves to Susanne dePasse and sitcom and rap stars...Lord it was like God smiled on black folks!!! It was...allegory here, too...Reconstruction, all over again. Black yuppies were going to rule DC's nightlife (the first young professionals' affiliate of the Urban League began in '92), and we had the literal takeover of Prince Georges County Maryland by blackfolks, including one Albert Wynn, taking a congressional seat in what had once been Maryland's hotbed of the Confederacy (who do you think helped John Wilkes Booth and Dr. Samuel Mudd?)
Ah, but reality set in, mah chillun. Cronyism (called "small business development), self-dealing, self-aggrandizement..."relationship building" as Marion Barry calls it. I call itbullshit. I call it the same thing, year after year. As with Bill Clinton, the promise and glitter of '92 was just a smokescreen, a destraction and self-masturbatory illusion as in Dr. Zhivago...and as in the end of Reconstruction, a self-congratulatory respite before the world schooled us that partying and fluff and bravado weren't the tools we needed to survive...
So in 2008, Al Wynn is deposed after he waged a nasty campaign, reminescent of old timers like Sharpe James or Barry. After his craven embracing of Obama whilst his peers like Maxine Waters and Ron Dellums clung to Hillary Clinton. Hopefully, they will be next, as their constituents--the regular people, rebel. Our people's wealth is destroyed by predatory lending, mortgage fraud--and yet he's supporting Bush and bigshots' "reforms" to bankruptcy, and hums and hahs as people drown in debt. Not just the newbies to PG Co.--but the very folk who partied in 1992. Broke, some in jail, divorced. Still buying luxury SUVs with $500/month notes, however. Still--hopeless.
Funny thing about hope, though. You can always get it back. We saw this as Albert was shown the door, and Marion Barry's hedging on who he'd support in the presidential primary bites him in his whithered ass. I'd like to see the rest of the Congressional Black Caucus's Class of '92 step, and let a re-invigorated generation take the reins. I vowed to myself I'd fight and die before I saw another and another and another Post-Reconstruction period, where retards like George W. Bush or facists like Dick Cheney can rise to such prominence while we grouse and crow and do the Soulja Boy dance. Through the ice and gloom this Wednesday, perhaps there's some hope.
I'm no talking about Obama and Hillary now, or even McCain and the queerish, silent civil war in the GOP. I'm talking about my congressman, Albert Wynn. Yeah, Fat Albert bit the dust in the primary...FINALLY...at the hands of Donna Edwards. And it bodes ill for a lot of people in the Congressional Black Caucus, for individuals like Tavis Smiley, and yeah--even for our own shuffling, slurring legend, Marion Barry. Why?
In 1992, the CBC doubled in size due in part to gerrmandering new "black" districts. Amid much black tie fanfare, I recall that night when I and the vicious high yella gnome who was the former Mrs. Nat Turner attended the CBCF Gala...and it was like Dr. Zhivago before the Bolsheviks and famine put a foot in everyone's ass, including their own. File that allegory, fanboys and girls, 'cause there's gonna be a quiz later. Slick Willie and Hillary were there, all the captains and doyennes from Bob Johnson and Earl Greaves to Susanne dePasse and sitcom and rap stars...Lord it was like God smiled on black folks!!! It was...allegory here, too...Reconstruction, all over again. Black yuppies were going to rule DC's nightlife (the first young professionals' affiliate of the Urban League began in '92), and we had the literal takeover of Prince Georges County Maryland by blackfolks, including one Albert Wynn, taking a congressional seat in what had once been Maryland's hotbed of the Confederacy (who do you think helped John Wilkes Booth and Dr. Samuel Mudd?)
Ah, but reality set in, mah chillun. Cronyism (called "small business development), self-dealing, self-aggrandizement..."relationship building" as Marion Barry calls it. I call itbullshit. I call it the same thing, year after year. As with Bill Clinton, the promise and glitter of '92 was just a smokescreen, a destraction and self-masturbatory illusion as in Dr. Zhivago...and as in the end of Reconstruction, a self-congratulatory respite before the world schooled us that partying and fluff and bravado weren't the tools we needed to survive...
So in 2008, Al Wynn is deposed after he waged a nasty campaign, reminescent of old timers like Sharpe James or Barry. After his craven embracing of Obama whilst his peers like Maxine Waters and Ron Dellums clung to Hillary Clinton. Hopefully, they will be next, as their constituents--the regular people, rebel. Our people's wealth is destroyed by predatory lending, mortgage fraud--and yet he's supporting Bush and bigshots' "reforms" to bankruptcy, and hums and hahs as people drown in debt. Not just the newbies to PG Co.--but the very folk who partied in 1992. Broke, some in jail, divorced. Still buying luxury SUVs with $500/month notes, however. Still--hopeless.
Funny thing about hope, though. You can always get it back. We saw this as Albert was shown the door, and Marion Barry's hedging on who he'd support in the presidential primary bites him in his whithered ass. I'd like to see the rest of the Congressional Black Caucus's Class of '92 step, and let a re-invigorated generation take the reins. I vowed to myself I'd fight and die before I saw another and another and another Post-Reconstruction period, where retards like George W. Bush or facists like Dick Cheney can rise to such prominence while we grouse and crow and do the Soulja Boy dance. Through the ice and gloom this Wednesday, perhaps there's some hope.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
"Fight the Powa"
Bred'ren and ladies of the greatest and oldest region of our Nation, wetted by the Chesapeake and all its tributaries: GET OUT AND VOTE TODAY AND GET RID OF THESE SELF-SERVING, SELF-DEALING PIECES OF CRAP. Al Wynn, Hillary...gone. Donna Edwards, Barack--in. Please. Lord, please.
Republicans: send Big John McCain a message, too--that we regular folks, we non-insane, non-right wing fools, want you to stay a maverick, a crusty ol' man not takin' shit from no one! Stay away from Reverend Mike Huck-a-buck. If you're so inclined, vote for Ron Paul if you're tired of folk sneaking into this country and are having kids at 16 with boyfriends in MS-13 in Gaithersburg and Takoma Park and Manassas...OR if that's too Nazi for ya, then vote for Ron Paul if you're tired of these Dick Cheney types who encourage illegal immigration to depress wages and feed Hispanics into virtual serfdom.
Kick these clowns out. Gone, baby gone...
Republicans: send Big John McCain a message, too--that we regular folks, we non-insane, non-right wing fools, want you to stay a maverick, a crusty ol' man not takin' shit from no one! Stay away from Reverend Mike Huck-a-buck. If you're so inclined, vote for Ron Paul if you're tired of folk sneaking into this country and are having kids at 16 with boyfriends in MS-13 in Gaithersburg and Takoma Park and Manassas...OR if that's too Nazi for ya, then vote for Ron Paul if you're tired of these Dick Cheney types who encourage illegal immigration to depress wages and feed Hispanics into virtual serfdom.
Kick these clowns out. Gone, baby gone...
Monday, February 11, 2008
Two wins, one loss
No I'm not talking about Obama, Hillary, McCain, Rev. Huck-a-buck. I mean Amy Winehouse and Herbie Hancock turning what was a vapid, pop- and faux-hip hop shrouded Grammy Awards on joke network CBS (Joe Montegna as a presenter? Jesus, the marketing's getting less veiled because we're getting dumber) into gold.
The loss? Roy Scheider. At least he outlived the shark. But he was so much more. Those of us who still care about art and grit in books and film remember his iconic sidekick role in the best cop movie of all times--The French Connection. RIP Roy. Tell Robert Shaw up in actor heaven that the biting up scene in Jaws still scares folks, and yeah that the little pussy Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Showtime's The Tudors) can't hold a candle to your Henry VIII. Just send another great white...or hell even a vicious tuna...to eat Kanye West, Jay-z and Beyonce. We are as sick of y'all as we are of the Clintons and Bushes....
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The elections and the Essence Literary Awards, part deux
The winners Thursday at Le Park Meridien:
CURRENT AFFAIRS: An Unbroken Agony – Randall Robinson
PHOTOGRAPHY: Daufuskie Island – Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe
CHILDREN’S BOOKS: Marvelous World – Troy Cle
MEMOIR: Brother, I’m Dying – Edwidge Danticat
NON-FICTION: Supreme Discomfort – Michael Fletcher and Kevin Merida
INSPIRATION: Quiet Strength – Tony Dungy
FICTION: The Pirate’s Daughter – Margaret Cezair-Thompson
STORYTELLER OF THE YEAR: L.A. Banks
You can check out my interview last year with Kevin Merida and Mike Fletcher on the blog here. It's also great to see Edwidge Danticat crystallize into a literary jewel, as well as a bona fide public intellectual like Alice Walker or Toni Morrison--with none of Alice's crazy-ass baggage or Toni's literatti crutches and pretense. As I said, a paradigm shift. Yeah Essence is not The Atlantic, and at times seems even worse than Cosmopolitan with a tan. But peep the nominees in my previous post, and check out the winners. All wonderful works, thoughtfully conceived. No street/ghetto "lit" or black porn. Perhaps the rest of the black population should take note and stop the bullshit. Bad taste, low taste ain't cool. We'll look to President Barack to school us from the bully pulpit on that. Oh, and props to LA Banks, who's books are, in my mind, an amalgam of Tolkein, Dante and Milton, mixed with a new hip mythos for a new generation. Her stuff is no more fairy tale than the so-called "real life--hey this speaks to my experience" of thug lit and sex books. And yeah--she does outsell all but the top street and booty fiction. Imagine that...
Now, to the election. Very simple. If Howard Dean allows a small group of out-of-touch politicos and largesse-demanding coons (e.g. the Super Delegates hahaha) to give the nomination to Hillary Clinton, this will sound the death knell for the Democratic Party. Time for Al Gore and few others to ride in and stop this mess. As for Huckabee--so the Christian Taliban comes through for him? So friggin' what. Those people will tank the election for the GOP and the only scenario where they wouldn't would be--yep--if Hillary were the nominee. The ONLY way that scenario helps Obama is if he (1) declines the VP spot and (2) ascends to the podium, like FDR when he endorsed Al Smith for President against Hoover after a long fight, and becomes a mythic figure. Then he shuts up and doesn't support Hillary after that. And, like Al Smith, Hillary will loose, McCain sticks out one term, and Obama's people basically take over the shambles that the Clintons have made, rebuilds and destroys either McCain or his successor in 2012--assuming the country is even around in 2012. Remember, Dick Cheney & Crew are still running things, and how about a nice juicy dog-wagging war on Iran, or some rogue terrorist action which must be avenged. Forget squaring off with the Chinese. Too much money to be made with them. But that's for my NEXT post on Darfur....
CURRENT AFFAIRS: An Unbroken Agony – Randall Robinson
PHOTOGRAPHY: Daufuskie Island – Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe
CHILDREN’S BOOKS: Marvelous World – Troy Cle
MEMOIR: Brother, I’m Dying – Edwidge Danticat
NON-FICTION: Supreme Discomfort – Michael Fletcher and Kevin Merida
INSPIRATION: Quiet Strength – Tony Dungy
FICTION: The Pirate’s Daughter – Margaret Cezair-Thompson
STORYTELLER OF THE YEAR: L.A. Banks
You can check out my interview last year with Kevin Merida and Mike Fletcher on the blog here. It's also great to see Edwidge Danticat crystallize into a literary jewel, as well as a bona fide public intellectual like Alice Walker or Toni Morrison--with none of Alice's crazy-ass baggage or Toni's literatti crutches and pretense. As I said, a paradigm shift. Yeah Essence is not The Atlantic, and at times seems even worse than Cosmopolitan with a tan. But peep the nominees in my previous post, and check out the winners. All wonderful works, thoughtfully conceived. No street/ghetto "lit" or black porn. Perhaps the rest of the black population should take note and stop the bullshit. Bad taste, low taste ain't cool. We'll look to President Barack to school us from the bully pulpit on that. Oh, and props to LA Banks, who's books are, in my mind, an amalgam of Tolkein, Dante and Milton, mixed with a new hip mythos for a new generation. Her stuff is no more fairy tale than the so-called "real life--hey this speaks to my experience" of thug lit and sex books. And yeah--she does outsell all but the top street and booty fiction. Imagine that...
Now, to the election. Very simple. If Howard Dean allows a small group of out-of-touch politicos and largesse-demanding coons (e.g. the Super Delegates hahaha) to give the nomination to Hillary Clinton, this will sound the death knell for the Democratic Party. Time for Al Gore and few others to ride in and stop this mess. As for Huckabee--so the Christian Taliban comes through for him? So friggin' what. Those people will tank the election for the GOP and the only scenario where they wouldn't would be--yep--if Hillary were the nominee. The ONLY way that scenario helps Obama is if he (1) declines the VP spot and (2) ascends to the podium, like FDR when he endorsed Al Smith for President against Hoover after a long fight, and becomes a mythic figure. Then he shuts up and doesn't support Hillary after that. And, like Al Smith, Hillary will loose, McCain sticks out one term, and Obama's people basically take over the shambles that the Clintons have made, rebuilds and destroys either McCain or his successor in 2012--assuming the country is even around in 2012. Remember, Dick Cheney & Crew are still running things, and how about a nice juicy dog-wagging war on Iran, or some rogue terrorist action which must be avenged. Forget squaring off with the Chinese. Too much money to be made with them. But that's for my NEXT post on Darfur....
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
The elections and the Essence Literary Awards
What does one have to do with the other? Subtext, my fanboys and girls. Subtext. Did you think I was giving up AUDACITY for Lent? Please!
First, tomorrow night at Le Park Meridien in Manhattan, sandbox of the "Cloverfield" beast, Essence Magazine will honor 2008 nominees in the field of prose and poetry. Now, Essence is no longer owned by black folks (then again, illegal immigrants comprise 65% of the cotton-pickers in Miss. and Alabama, while we're dancing to Soulja Boy on the street corner down there). It's also less Vanity Fair and more Cosmo with a tan--and a stunning number of generic (i.e. white) ads. But Patrik Henry Bass, Book Editor-for-life, has at least tried to maintain standards amidst the flux.
Here are the nominees. Sense a pattern? Hint: think of Nat Turner's trip to the gala Hurston-Wright Awards with Mrs Nat, and to whom I presented the most prestigious award. Edward P. Jones. One of the few Americans who won that night, and certainly no purveyor "genre" fiction...or thug lit, or softcore porn for churchladies...or straight-up hardcore gossip.
FICTION Red River by Lalita Tademy/Grand Central Publishing ; Casanegra by Blair Underwood, Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due/Atria ; The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson/Unbridled Books ;New England White by Stephen L. Carter/Knopf; Knots by Nuruddin Farah/Riverhead
MEMOIR Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat/Knopf; The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell/William Morrow ; Alek by Alek Wek/Amistad ; One Drop by Bliss Broyard/Little, Brown and Co. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
INSPIRATION Reposition Yourself by TD Jakes/Atria From the Heart by Robin Roberts/Hyperion Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy/Tyndale Do You! by Russell Simmons/Penguin How Strong Women Pray by Bonnie St. John/Faith Words
NONFICTION The Bond by Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt/Riverhead; Friends: A Love Story by Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance/Harlequin ; I Got Your Back by Eddie and Gerald Levert/Harlem Moon ; Foreigners by Caryl Phillips/Knopf ; Supreme Discomfort by Michael Fletcher and Kevin Merida/Doubleday
CURRENT AFFAIRS Come on People by Bill Cosby/Thomas Nelson The Covenant in Action by Tavis Smiley/Smiley Books An Unbroken Agony by Randall Robinson/Basic Civitas Know What I Mean? By Michael Eric Dyson/Perseus Books Group Twice As Good by Marcus Mabry/Modern Times
PHOTOGRAPHY Daufuskie Island by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe/University of South Carolina Press Pop by Carol Ross/Stewart, Tabori & Chang Jimi Hendrix by Janie Hendrix/Atria Let Your Motto Be Resistance edited by Deborah Willis/Smithsonian Press Jewels by Michael Cunningham and Connie Briscoe/Little, Brown and Co.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine illustrated by Kadir Nelson/Scholastic Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel by Patricia Storace and Raul Colon/Jump at the Sun Marvelous World by Troy Cle/Simon & Schuster’s Children’s Publishing The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-mbachu/Jump at the Sun Sallie Gal and the Wall-a-Kee Man by Shelia P. Moses and Niki Daly/Scholastic POETRY Duende by Tracy K. Smith/Graywolf Press Acolytes by Nikki Giovanni/William Morrow Totem by Gregory Pardlo/American Poetry Review
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Terry McMillan
STORYTELLER OF THE YEAR Eric Jerome Dickey Lori Bryant-Woolridge Trisha R. Thomas L.A. Banks Tananarive Due
Some of the nonfiction's pretty pedestrian (with the exception of Kevin and Mike's bio of Clarence Thomas--they were first interviewed on this blog), but at least it's not another "The Life and Times of Willy Lynch" etc. Now,"Storyteller of the Year" is a weird catch-all. Here, they are trying to nod to "popular" fiction. If you don't count Eric Dickey's cheesing us over The Darker Mask, all of these folks are friends of mine and I am sick to root for just one. Indeed, my wife nominated one of these authors, and I personally voted for another--though it was tough as hell. However, these folks--even Dickey yuckyuckyuck--represent the pinnacle of genre fiction and are about as close in order and genus, though not species, to street lit, etc. as you will get. About as close as humans are to Capuchin monkeys, actually. Both primates, but one far more advanced. So what's the message? Perhap Patrick Bass is telling us that there is a profound paradigm shift. It's not the street lit authors braying about how Essence (orHurston-Wright) is out of touch with the masses. The key is that masses are out of touch with reality. Ignorance and ignorant writing is not something to celebrate. Hell even Bass will say behind closed doors so as not to offend the more bamma bookclubs out there--but maybe they NEED offending. Anyone who says that the mass of garbage out there "speaks to me and my experiences" or "tells the truth" is either high or retarded. 90% of these books are mere brain candy, farce, more fairy tales or soap operas than "hard personal reality." Fans of it and the folks who write it and the WHITE PEOPLE who print it and reap the cash are either lying to you, or themselves. Guess which category the publishers fit it, eh? Paradigm shifts are scary things to some folks. No wonder you heard all kinds of howling when these nominations hit the public. And even Mr. Charlie and Missy Ann, content in sales figures backing up the ignorance, still sweat. Sweat hard. Maybe these nee-grows aren't carnal, wild, sasssy, dumb, sex crazed, dangerous as we'd like them to be for marketing purposes...
Onto "Super Tuesday" and another paradigm shift. Obama's leading in the delegate count. He's got $30 mil in the bank. What he doesn't have are white women ages 36-60. But for the first time since LBJ and Hubert Humphrey were running things is white men. Imagine that. In Utah. What he has are black people who no longer want to follow self-aggrandzing Civil Rights era or 197os-80s FOSSILS like Maxine Waters. Shifts upset people., as will the Essence choices. On the other side, the GOP continues it's friggin' fratricide over McCain. Look, in a contest between McCain and Hillary, guess who I'll be voting for--and a LOT of you, too. He is the reincarnation of Eisenhower: old mean white man from the military who becomes a MODERATE as president, and that has the Dick Cheneyites. the fatcat Wall Street/outsourcing/sell the country to China/layoff everyone-and-take-the-Golden Parachute/greed is good Republicans shitting their breeches. Lord--Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh endorsing Hillary Clinton?! They just as scared of Huckabee (even a VP Huckabee) because even though a President Huckabee might sign a law OK-ing witch trials, burning abortionists, gays and Muslims at the stake, and providing for prison terms on viewing anything but reruns of The Waltons and 700 Club, he'd ALSO sign a law mandating universal health care/cross the board Medicaid-like benefits for all Americans, and a tax on oil companies, etc. Now you see what the drama is all about. Shifts hurt. The powers that be, be they on the "left" or "right", or the annointed ignorant flavor of the month and it's sponsors, will die before they let the shift occur. Us--we got to do what Chuck D says. What the Isleys say. We're so close...
First, tomorrow night at Le Park Meridien in Manhattan, sandbox of the "Cloverfield" beast, Essence Magazine will honor 2008 nominees in the field of prose and poetry. Now, Essence is no longer owned by black folks (then again, illegal immigrants comprise 65% of the cotton-pickers in Miss. and Alabama, while we're dancing to Soulja Boy on the street corner down there). It's also less Vanity Fair and more Cosmo with a tan--and a stunning number of generic (i.e. white) ads. But Patrik Henry Bass, Book Editor-for-life, has at least tried to maintain standards amidst the flux.
Here are the nominees. Sense a pattern? Hint: think of Nat Turner's trip to the gala Hurston-Wright Awards with Mrs Nat, and to whom I presented the most prestigious award. Edward P. Jones. One of the few Americans who won that night, and certainly no purveyor "genre" fiction...or thug lit, or softcore porn for churchladies...or straight-up hardcore gossip.
FICTION Red River by Lalita Tademy/Grand Central Publishing ; Casanegra by Blair Underwood, Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due/Atria ; The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson/Unbridled Books ;New England White by Stephen L. Carter/Knopf; Knots by Nuruddin Farah/Riverhead
MEMOIR Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat/Knopf; The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell/William Morrow ; Alek by Alek Wek/Amistad ; One Drop by Bliss Broyard/Little, Brown and Co. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
INSPIRATION Reposition Yourself by TD Jakes/Atria From the Heart by Robin Roberts/Hyperion Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy/Tyndale Do You! by Russell Simmons/Penguin How Strong Women Pray by Bonnie St. John/Faith Words
NONFICTION The Bond by Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt/Riverhead; Friends: A Love Story by Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance/Harlequin ; I Got Your Back by Eddie and Gerald Levert/Harlem Moon ; Foreigners by Caryl Phillips/Knopf ; Supreme Discomfort by Michael Fletcher and Kevin Merida/Doubleday
CURRENT AFFAIRS Come on People by Bill Cosby/Thomas Nelson The Covenant in Action by Tavis Smiley/Smiley Books An Unbroken Agony by Randall Robinson/Basic Civitas Know What I Mean? By Michael Eric Dyson/Perseus Books Group Twice As Good by Marcus Mabry/Modern Times
PHOTOGRAPHY Daufuskie Island by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe/University of South Carolina Press Pop by Carol Ross/Stewart, Tabori & Chang Jimi Hendrix by Janie Hendrix/Atria Let Your Motto Be Resistance edited by Deborah Willis/Smithsonian Press Jewels by Michael Cunningham and Connie Briscoe/Little, Brown and Co.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine illustrated by Kadir Nelson/Scholastic Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel by Patricia Storace and Raul Colon/Jump at the Sun Marvelous World by Troy Cle/Simon & Schuster’s Children’s Publishing The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-mbachu/Jump at the Sun Sallie Gal and the Wall-a-Kee Man by Shelia P. Moses and Niki Daly/Scholastic POETRY Duende by Tracy K. Smith/Graywolf Press Acolytes by Nikki Giovanni/William Morrow Totem by Gregory Pardlo/American Poetry Review
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Terry McMillan
STORYTELLER OF THE YEAR Eric Jerome Dickey Lori Bryant-Woolridge Trisha R. Thomas L.A. Banks Tananarive Due
Some of the nonfiction's pretty pedestrian (with the exception of Kevin and Mike's bio of Clarence Thomas--they were first interviewed on this blog), but at least it's not another "The Life and Times of Willy Lynch" etc. Now,"Storyteller of the Year" is a weird catch-all. Here, they are trying to nod to "popular" fiction. If you don't count Eric Dickey's cheesing us over The Darker Mask, all of these folks are friends of mine and I am sick to root for just one. Indeed, my wife nominated one of these authors, and I personally voted for another--though it was tough as hell. However, these folks--even Dickey yuckyuckyuck--represent the pinnacle of genre fiction and are about as close in order and genus, though not species, to street lit, etc. as you will get. About as close as humans are to Capuchin monkeys, actually. Both primates, but one far more advanced. So what's the message? Perhap Patrick Bass is telling us that there is a profound paradigm shift. It's not the street lit authors braying about how Essence (orHurston-Wright) is out of touch with the masses. The key is that masses are out of touch with reality. Ignorance and ignorant writing is not something to celebrate. Hell even Bass will say behind closed doors so as not to offend the more bamma bookclubs out there--but maybe they NEED offending. Anyone who says that the mass of garbage out there "speaks to me and my experiences" or "tells the truth" is either high or retarded. 90% of these books are mere brain candy, farce, more fairy tales or soap operas than "hard personal reality." Fans of it and the folks who write it and the WHITE PEOPLE who print it and reap the cash are either lying to you, or themselves. Guess which category the publishers fit it, eh? Paradigm shifts are scary things to some folks. No wonder you heard all kinds of howling when these nominations hit the public. And even Mr. Charlie and Missy Ann, content in sales figures backing up the ignorance, still sweat. Sweat hard. Maybe these nee-grows aren't carnal, wild, sasssy, dumb, sex crazed, dangerous as we'd like them to be for marketing purposes...
Onto "Super Tuesday" and another paradigm shift. Obama's leading in the delegate count. He's got $30 mil in the bank. What he doesn't have are white women ages 36-60. But for the first time since LBJ and Hubert Humphrey were running things is white men. Imagine that. In Utah. What he has are black people who no longer want to follow self-aggrandzing Civil Rights era or 197os-80s FOSSILS like Maxine Waters. Shifts upset people., as will the Essence choices. On the other side, the GOP continues it's friggin' fratricide over McCain. Look, in a contest between McCain and Hillary, guess who I'll be voting for--and a LOT of you, too. He is the reincarnation of Eisenhower: old mean white man from the military who becomes a MODERATE as president, and that has the Dick Cheneyites. the fatcat Wall Street/outsourcing/sell the country to China/layoff everyone-and-take-the-Golden Parachute/greed is good Republicans shitting their breeches. Lord--Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh endorsing Hillary Clinton?! They just as scared of Huckabee (even a VP Huckabee) because even though a President Huckabee might sign a law OK-ing witch trials, burning abortionists, gays and Muslims at the stake, and providing for prison terms on viewing anything but reruns of The Waltons and 700 Club, he'd ALSO sign a law mandating universal health care/cross the board Medicaid-like benefits for all Americans, and a tax on oil companies, etc. Now you see what the drama is all about. Shifts hurt. The powers that be, be they on the "left" or "right", or the annointed ignorant flavor of the month and it's sponsors, will die before they let the shift occur. Us--we got to do what Chuck D says. What the Isleys say. We're so close...
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Super Tuesday
The TV "news" networks live for horseraces like this. Is it good for democracy? When since did that make a difference? Hmmm? But let us not forget it's also mardi gras. Tomorrow, we go get that ash on our foreheads. Tomorrow, we're supposed to cleanse ourselves and act like better people. We'll see. Hope abounds, and if it's gone, you can always get it back. Look at the NY Giants, after all.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Giants-Patriots
Like I could give a damn. Two teams for which I have no love. An NFL that feeds off hype, the money machine, image (thus you destroy all documents relating to Coach Bill's spying)...and yet scores of ex players--particular the old timers who built Leagure glory, are crippled and/or demented, and Gene Upshaw lapdogs himself worse than these COONS like Ron Dellums, Maxine Waters, Andy Young, every pastor in Harlem kissing the Clintons' asses. Lord.
No, I don't indulge the ad/pr machine and eat a lot of heart attack food.
No, I don't likewise care about the commercials. Grow the hell up, America.
No, I could randomly give a thrust about the halftime show.
But I will do this--
Prediction Patriots 27, Giants 13
The key to the game will be Eli Manning...and the game itself will be boring as shit. Per usual. Mad worse by the previews of awful reality shows. Enjoy!
No, I don't indulge the ad/pr machine and eat a lot of heart attack food.
No, I don't likewise care about the commercials. Grow the hell up, America.
No, I could randomly give a thrust about the halftime show.
But I will do this--
Prediction Patriots 27, Giants 13
The key to the game will be Eli Manning...and the game itself will be boring as shit. Per usual. Mad worse by the previews of awful reality shows. Enjoy!
Friday, February 01, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)