If you read this blog on any kind of regular basis then you will love, not like, love, I’m through with White girls. Calm the fuck down! It’s not a miscegenation gone right tale. It is the quest for the tragic mulattress, but I still run around my house doing from Imitation of Life scenes so I’m Ok with the tragic mulatto narrative so long as its somehow self conscious, and it totally is in White Girls.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again here, while the movie is awesome, the story of the movie, a black independent film that doesn’t bow to conventions is what’s fucking hotter than slave’s neck. If you are in the bay area, at all, like even down in Concord or some ass end of the world like that, you owe it to yourself to take a trek up to the Roxie on Friday, or shit, any time over the weekend or next week, and peep this flick. You’ve got a 50/50 chance of meeting me if that’s any enticement. And just so that everything’s above board, I’ve gotten no money, power, fame, or sex off of talking about this movie. I just happen to like the shit out of it. I know you really want to go see Kung fu Panda this weekend, but try and support an independent black flick, ok? Your local afrogeek will thank you.
I don’t know how you and yours got down, but when I came up we had copies of the ANC papers framed on the walls. I was told to tell my third grade teacher that I couldn’t salute the flag until the U.S.A. divested all investments from south Africa. I was raised to think of South Africans as a homogeneous rebel fighting group that was in constant struggle with the reality and concept of Apartheid. This kid I knew, with a family like mine, named his favorite pitbull Shaka. I don’t know about you all, but I grew up with South Africa on the mind. That, in part, is what motivated me to pick up Red on Black: The story of the South African poster movement. The other part was that I wanted to go around putting up posters, reminiscent of those Apartheid posters but with a more contemporary feel. I wanted to show people what happens when the art and the message are devoid of the quest for profit but instead focused on expressing a vitally important point.
And it was in this deeply insightful, artistically focused place that I decided to watch, what is for me the ultimate movie about South Africa, Shaka Zulu. If you were alive in the 80’s don’t act like you didn’t watch every single episode of Shaka Zulu. Unless you were one of those prep for prep kids or something. Shaka Zulu, as a tv watching experience was AWESOME! For my adolescent boy self. First and foremost, with a nod to Martha Warfield, there were titties everywhere! I mean, I honestly don’t understand how it was shown on network tv, but there were African titties and nipples and sex and everything. And it was just out there. I mentioned Marsha Warfield because she has this awesome joke that goes alone lines of “How come when white women show their breasts its pornography, but when black women show their breasts in anthropology?” All I can say is God bless Anthropology!
But aside from that, you’ve got this dude Shaka coming through like a straight savage. I mean before Braveheart, before revisions of everyone from Christopher Columbus to Caesar, there was presented, for popular enjoyment, an extremely buff dark skinned military captain who wasn’t afraid to fuck with white people. Hell Shaka wasn’t afraid of anything. Plus he had that voice; it never rushed and was never loud, only powerful and slow. I know that the tv series has issues and it was generated in part to help keep Zulus from joining with other tribes during apartheid, and I know that the story doesn’t accurately portray what the Zulu kings life was really like, but as a piece of tele-visual drama, it was a narrative that a dark skinned black boy like myself could get into. As I look around at the media landscape I find less and less material that speaks to me on that Shaka Level. All this to say, I bought a scooter. And his name is Shaka. Don’t trip, my car’s name is Puttanesca.
As for the posters…Well I’m not a visual artist. I’m a writer. So over the summer I’ll be posting podcasts of a previously unpublished book here. Maybe it will change the world. Maybe people will just like it. We’ll see.
Fuck the dumb shit ya’ll. Let’s put politics in it’s proper place, it’s all a three card monty game for the most part. It’s all about how to get the most in without using up all the Vaseline. We all know its true. We try to act like its not but we know, you know like a foot massage. The best a politician can hope to do once in office is push the random piece of legislature through the proper channels with the force of a pimp on John street, every now and then. David Paterson, however, is the exception that proves the rule. Here are four reasons why I’d vote for the current governor of New York as the President of the United States. 1. Dude is blind. Whatever he does after that, the dude navigates the world sight unseen. He’s like a black Matt Murdock 2. Ok, so he takes over for Elliot Spitzer after the reigning governor resigns in a swirl of controversy over a $1000 a night breezy being an state line item. (Little caveat here: The only reason I have any grief on this one is that he used official funds. As far as I’m concerned, you should get a willing and eager servicer of needs as soon as you get appointed to any official office. But kids in new York still think there are 48 states while Spitzer is blowing $150,000 on getting his dome blown). First thing my main man Paterson does after getting sworn in is tell all of god’s green. “Yeah, I get mad play from freaks. My old lady does to. Deal with it!” GANGSTER! 3. The man doesn’t flinch from controversy. He demands same sex marriages in other states be recognized in New York. Aside from Cali, who else is on the record like that? And a black man on top of that, endorsing without a second of consideration. I don’t see Obama doing that. I see Obama making speeches about hoping same sex marriages one day meet Dr. martin Luther King up on the hillside with his dying white mom with no healthcare. Paterson is down for some action steps. 4. BIGGEST OF BIG however, bigger than Jimi live in ’68, bigger than Macy Gray’s ‘fro, bigger than the balls on the President, Paterson pardoned SLICK RICK! I mean Rick’s shit was so stupid anyway, some dumb attempted homicide beef. Plus Rick already did five years for that drama. So fuck the dumb shit, Slick Rick can now live without fear of being exported like mad cow to the U.K. It’s done. Over. That’s it! Ain’t nothing else to say. Put a period on the end of that sentence. I’m making the t-shirts. Runaway write in candidate Paterson for president. If not, then maybe just pimp of the year.
