Rest in Peace

Stan Winston
1946-2008

You dazzled us.

A Global President

We live in an increasingly globalist society, yet the American populace seems to want a president who is wholly provincial. We want the president to ‘be ours’ and no one else’s. You cannot be (or maintain as) a super power if you can’t see past your own country. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that McCain will be well-received internationally. How seriously can you take an aging cowboy who is in a near lock-step with the previous administration—an administration that has fostered so much ill-will internationally?

Clinton, as smart as she is, isn’t the trailblazer everyone wants or thinks her to be. In this country’s history, she is the only viable female presidential candidate—and she deserves to be recognized as such. However, in the international community, she’s not so special nor is she the first heavyweight female political figure on the global stage: Margaret Thatcher, Tansu Çiller, Angela Merkel, Benazir Bhutto, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Kim Campbell, and others share that distinction. And it sickens me to have to think of this election in terms of gender and race—because it only goes to show how backwards Americans are. People should be able to run for the highest office based on merit. More meritocracy is evidenced on American Idol than in our own political system. And it is the role of merit that makes Obama’s presidential run so frustrating.

As far as the international piece goes, he is more prepared than both Clinton and McCain (even though he saw combat in a different country) combined.
Barack is biracial and from his earliest days had to view the world through a transcultural lens. He grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, and lived and worked in Chicago; three cultural melting pots. You’re not getting much international flavor in Arkansas or Arizona. His being an attorney calls in to question his moral and ethical fortitude, but just based on his upbringing, he has been better prepared for engagement with the international community than either Clinton or McCain.

Folks want to argue that Clinton’s eight years in the White House has given her the training she needs to tackle international problems. A quick aside: I keep harping on the need for a president to be ready for international matters because I truly feel that local governments should be able to handle all domestic problems.
Just because Clinton is married to one of the greatest (yet ethically malleable) political minds of our time does not mean that she is ready. Being the President of the United States is not a meme you can catch. It takes hard work and you don’t learn it through osmosis. But her exposure to the presidential process, foreign ministers, international travel does give her a leg up on Obama, in theory.

What it will boil down to is who utilizes their skill-set in the best possible way. Can Clinton take those eight years and parlay them into an effective presidency? A presidency that will completely and totally eclipse her husband’s storied run? Or can Obama operate from his profoundly transcultural context and embrace the entire world with more than just fancy rhetoric and youth galvanization? And McCain…we don’t need Bush-lite. McCain is the Billy beer of this presidential race—amusing, yet awkward and really spooky under close scrutiny.

I haven’t made up my mind who I will be voting for this November (well…it won’t be McCain) but I will be taking a close look as to who can effectively engage the world in such a way that American will regain some of its international luster—a luster that has been thoroughly corroded under the Bush regime.

Where Does Africa Fit In?

What, if anything, does Africa owe pan-Diaspora Black peoples?
What, if anything, do pan-Diaspora Black peoples owe Africa?
I've been thinking about this lately and I'll offer some ideas in the coming weeks.

Wright and the RC

So…the race card (RC). It makes me laugh—only to distract myself from the anger—when people make the claim that someone is using the RC. The reason that this is coming up is because of what should have been a non-incident: Statements made by the oh-so-divisive Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Rev. Wright said some things that would cause the average (ignorantly-pseudo patriotic) person to blanch. While his words may be too incendiary for some—let’s take a brief look at the track record of our country and see how far off he is. I won’t put the key points in a narrative, I’ll make a list—it is your job to check it twice:

- Decimation of this land’s Native population through war, disease, and treaty violations.
- The trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery
- Jim Crow
- Being the only country in the world to ever drop an Atom bomb (hell, the US dropped two) on an inhabited area
- Getting into WWII so late that European Jews were killed in earth-shattering numbers. Earlier involvement could have saved more people
- Having prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor
- The Tuskegee Experiment
- Viet Nam
- The Iraq War

This is just a mild sampling. As you can see, this country has done/contributed to/engineered through inaction some pretty heinous events. But back to the Rev. Do I agree with everything he spouts? Nope. But I do agree with and appreciate his anger, even if it is a bit self-aggrandizing. But the sad thing is that, as a whole, the US population is so intellectually and socially amateurish that they not only want to lash out at Wright, but also want to stick Obama within the rhetorical sphere. While I like Obama, he is not that hard nor is he that brave. In his current position, he can’t be. This country is (and will be for a very long time) colorstruck (with those of darker skin bearing the brunt of this nation’s color issues).

An institution like Bob Jones University can exist (with the President even going there to visit) and there is little to no uproar. Pat Robertson can say things that are truly divisive, but he has been a confidant to many government leaders. But a retired Black Reverend, who has a connection with the only viable Black Presidential hopeful in this nation’s history, is assaulted by a full multimedia attack. One of the most prominent attacks is saying that Wright is playing the RC. While I do believe that many
Black folks scream racism too much (especially if they get caught doing something stupid) racism exists and to call it out is not playing the RC. It’s self-defense.

What’s funny is that the people who are accusing Wright (and other outspoken Blacks) of using the RC…They are doing the exact same thing, but in their (limited capacity) minds, it is okay for them to do so. When bitter, gun wielding, clinging to religion, American-folks scream that someone is playing/using/dropping the race card, they are playing their own as a foundation for their criticism. What it boils down to is this—it is okay to play the race card, only if that card is carte blanche.

This is dedicated any and everyone who has the fire to point to the demon and name it.

Let Me Clear My Throat...

At the risk of sounding silly and unnecessarily cryptic, hip-hop cannot be explained in any concrete sense. The culture is as transient and malleable as our consensus reality, and the only way to really explore it is to consider hip-hop culture as ontology. Yes, folks, emceeing, graf writing, b-boying, DJing, and all of the other attendant aspects of the culture can give us meaning.

In its broadest interpretation, hip-hop is alchemy. It changes poverty into wealth; letters into words, words into lyrics, and lyrics into mind’s eye pictures that—if the lyrics are poignant enough—stay with us. Old music is made new; remixed, filtered, and rearranged, and re-presented in startling fashion. Blank walls are altars on which—with a small sacrifice of paint and time—can act as a bold town crier. Trains carry the gospel of self from city to city. Bodies twist and bend and whirl, pushing beyond typical human capacity—transforming dance into an act of rebellion against physiology.

The culture invites us to participate on all levels: physical, intellectual, emotional, and the metaphysical. Hip-hop’s four elements have one thing in common, they all engage us in our imaginative capacities; but each element intersects with the imagination with its own unique properties:

Graf writing is concerned with the symbiosis of the hand and eye.
B-boying deals with preprioception, physical limits and tolerances.
Emceeing allows us to bring forth the stuff of the subconscious and deliver it with audible passion.
DJing is an empathic pursuit—being open to change, allowing one to be moved by the whims of the crowd.

It’s that deep.

But with what passes for hip-hop today, it is nearly impossible to see how the culture can be worthy of anything, other than derision. As it stands, the public face of hip-hop is a throwback to the coonery and minstrelsy that openly plagued black popular culture from slavery right on up and through the civil rights movement—and exemplified today by the likes of the Flavor of Love, 50 Cent, and I § New York—all of which are vying to send the black public image skipping and singing back to the plantation.

It is so easy to blame the media, but in the case of the negative presentation of hip-hop, the media is at fault. But so are we. Big Media’s main concern is making money. That’s a given, and it is understandable. What isn’t so easily understood is why these media conglomerates whole-heartedly support the lowest common denominator of black cultural output.
An aside: I am fully aware that more than just black folks can claim to ‘be’ hip-hop or be about it, but it is a black art—don’t ever forget that.

I heard a guy say, “Smart black people aren’t good for business. It’s entirely too different. The skin and hair are already a shock, but to add brains…you’re just looking to lose money.” Damn. The sad thing is that his words are true, on a certain level—that level being that most black folks don’t like to see themselves as intellectual.

As to the why of this—that’s an entirely different piece of writing.

So, operating on this crazy premise, Big Media puts out crap, banal, anti-intellectual hip-hop (arguably the most popular youth culture today) and people of all nationalities can imbibe on black ignorance, en masse. What’s worse, the audience (us)—not caring what is being said, as long as the beat is hot—buys song after song, ringtone after ringtone, of pure drivel. And we like it. We like it like a thirsty man in the desert welcomes a glass of water, even though there is dirt in it—the dirty water is all that is available. But what sucks is that there is a clear-watered oasis not more than thirty feet from the thirsty man, but it is obscured by blowing sands and mirages. And it is due to the blowing sands and mirages of so much corporate bullshit, the once powerful art form/cultural expression of hip-hop has as much longevity as an Ikea kitchen table. However, this is not to say that there aren’t pockets of hope, progress, and meaning.

Independent American labels like Rhymesayers Entertainment and Def Jux are engaging us in ways not experienced since the heydays of Public Enemy, NWA, BDP, De La, Tribe, and Rakim. Not just in the arena of “this beat is so ill,” but in the “what did he just say?” and “that was philosophically profound” arenas as well.

Jean Grae has made anguish and despair an aggressively beautiful art form.

Over in the UK, you have Roots Manuva who presents the ethos of a UK black making UK rap in such a unpretentious way—run, not walk, and buy his album Awfully Deep.

In Paris, American expatriate Mike Ladd has done more for the aesthetics and potential of hip-hop than the entire Dipset crew.

Needless to say, these aren’t the only thing’s that recontextualize hip-hop in a better light, but the aforementioned don’t get nearly the exposure they deserve.

But what does all of this have to do with the hip-hop in its ontological capacity?

The culture and its artistic offshoots can act as a compass—showing the way to a better understanding of our world—allowing us to navigate treacherous psycho-social terrain. Whether it is through the ear, hand, eye, heart, mind, voice, or the imagination; this art/culture/cash cow of a culture that I love so dearly (even though I’m approaching thirty-six) can sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the heavy-hitters of philosophy, such as existentialism and epistemology. In fact, I’d argue that hip-hop, in its alchemical form, is the direction that modern philosophical thought and action should be traveling.

As with all meaning-making devices, hip-hop was built on a foundation and then took these constituent parts and created something entirely new. From poverty, racism, hopelessness, and violence, hip-hop was forged as a way to encompass (and transcend) all of the disparate and negative pieces that it is derived from. It became a way of becoming—self-actualization and realization to a drumbeat.

Our rhetorical debates happen in the cipher; our proclamations are displayed on trains and walls; we’ve done away with the false dualism of mind/body; turntables allow us to stay in constant contact with our ancestors, using their ancient wisdom to approach modern problems. Hip-hop is the new ontological beast on the philosophical block. And as the Fugees said on 1996s The Score: “Warn the town, the Beast is loose.”

Galactica Breakdown

Some Questions...

- How King Kong is the cover of the new Vogue?
- Where is D'Angelo?
- And speaking of soul men; where is Maxwell?
- Is it just me, or are The Roots the most consistent band around?
- Does eating good chocolate ever get old?
- Have you read Jinichiro Tanazaki's In Praise of Shadows? Why not?
- When was the last time you told someone you loved them, and meant it?

Blast from the past

Here is something I did for my friend's valentine's day celebration. waaayyy back in the day. I'm a much better performer now than I was then.

Be good and be good to each other.

I have a new book coming out

As some of you may already know, I self-published a book titled Big Black Penis: Misadventures in Race and Masculinity. It won the 2006 Do It Yourself (DIY) book award. The book was picked up by the Independent Publishers Group/Lawrence Hill Books and will be released properly this Spring/Summer. I rewrote the entire book and added a bunch of new chapters/essays. Please keep looking at this space for updates about the book and future projects. Here is a look at the final design for the cover, the interview I did after winning the award, and also a couple of advance reviews.

Be good, and be good to each other.

The Interview
____________________________________________________________________________
Big Black Penis" - An Interview With Author Shawn Taylor
Wednesday, November 29, 2006

NYBF: The title of your book is pretty audacious. How did you come up with it? And have you met any resistance from retailers/wholesalers/other distributors?

SHAWN TAYLOR: The title was kind of my addressing the fear of too-many Americans: Black male sexuality. I was aware that the title and cover image may hinder my chances of being prominently displayed at certain stores, but once I re-read the book, no other title had as much impact. The funny thing is, most people don’t even get to the sub-title: "Misadventures in Race and Masculinity." They see "Big Black Penis" and, based on those three words, they are either repulsed or on board. It is hilarious to me that people can watch the misogynistic television, cheer the Vagina Monologues and laud The Wedding Crashers but I put ‘big’ and ‘black’ and ‘penis’ together on the cover of a book, coupled with my photo, people have a hard time.

But, much to my surprise, every independent bookstore I approached was more than happy to stock the book. However, some of the customers of these stores were having a very difficult time with it. One day, I was checking on my sales at Walden Pond Books (in Oakland, CA) and I saw this woman turn all ten copies of my book so that the backs were facing out. I’m sitting there watching her and it looked like she was on a mission. Eventually, I asked her what she was doing. And, without turning to look at me, she talks about ‘filth’ and ‘inappropriateness’ and all this other drivel. I asked her why black cock scared her so much, even though a different colored cock allowed her to even exist and take the actions she was currently taking. She turned around in a huff, looked at me, than peeked at one of my books and left the store without another word. And it was at that moment that I knew that the title and the cover image were the right thing. If people are still freaked out about race and sexuality, then it is my duty to keep hitting them with it.

NYBF: Why did you write the book?

ST: To put it bluntly: Most books about men’s issues are either a) written by women, b) written by guys who have no problems emasculating themselves or c) written by guys whose cultural/ethnic/class experiences have nothing to do with mine. And, along with the above, very few Black men are being vulnerable in public. I wanted to dispel some long-standing stereotypes about Black men and give a candid peek into one facet of Black male life. We are not a monolithic entity and I felt it was my job to let people peer into the façade that the media, people’s own racism and biases and the image that many Black men create and perpetuate. It was my call to truth. There are a couple of brothers who are doing their thing -- Kevin Powell, Hill Harper, Michael Datcher, Scott Poulson-Braynt --but I felt they weren’t being raw enough. Maybe it’s that Brooklyn in me, but I wanted my work to be as ‘warts and all’ as possible.

NYBF: Was it cathartic to revisit your childhood?

ST: Yes. It was something that I needed to do so that I could move on to other projects. Everything that I was writing revolved around race and masculinity. I had a one-track mind for so long that I figured that I had to exorcise myself of these gender and culture demons. I wrote a series of monologues and performed them all over the place, and the response that I got was amazing. I did it for the men out there who don’t have it in them to be vulnerable and honest about themselves to others. But it was the women in the audience that were the most responsive and appreciative. I knew that I was on to something when a woman came up to me after performing a piece about absent fathers, and she burst into tears and told me that she now knew what her son was going through. She told me about how the kid’s dad smacked her around one night—in front of their son—and then took off, never to return. This asshole left without a warning and never once contacted the mother or his son again. Her story made me reflect on my coming up and I had to commit some of that horror to a more permanent form, hence the book. After writing the book, dealing with that shadow-stuff, I became a better friend and a much better husband. The book was kind of a right of passage for me.

NYBF: You’ve sold a lot of units of the book directly in nightclubs and other non-traditional arenas. Tell me about that approach.

ST: It’s all due to hip-hop. From the outset, hip-hop was all about DIY. You made your own flyers, you hotfooted it around the city passing out these flyers, posters, tapes, t-shirts and you put a personal touch on your product, and you exposed the face and personality behind the item. I took this same ethic and applied it to selling my book. Event though I was in several bookstores, I couldn’t just rely on them to push the book. It was my job, so I hustled it. Out and about, all hours of the day and night, selling my book. I’d catch people at the gas station, the grocery store, the flea market, anywhere but a bookstore. My biggest sales were after the bars closed. Legions of women, all of whom were disappointed by their interactions with men inside the club, would be storming back to their cars, cursing the very existence of men. I’d come up to them, explain how my book could give them some insight as to why many men are so damaged and not doing anything about it. The book would fly! I sold so many books this way, I can’t even tell you. I believe in my work and I will take any avenue to make sure that it gets out there.

NYBF: You said at the DIY Book Festival awards that you were committed to publishing independently. What is it about the process that appeals to you?

ST: I want to have the final say in how my work is presented to the public. I don’t want marketing teams and focus groups dictating how my voice should be filtered. Even though this was the hardest thing that I have ever done, it was worth it. There are few things that are more satisfying than seeing a something that you envision becoming reality. I did not have to make any sacrifices, compromises or worry about demographics. I wrote a book and am getting it out to many people. I can market to whomever I want. My book is being used as a textbook in a junior college course. If I was with a major publisher, I’m sure that that particular avenue would have never been considered. And aside from all of the lofty ideas behind my choice to DIY, doing it this way, I get a bigger cut of the revenue.

NYBF: What’s your next project?

ST: I wrote a book for the 331/3 series from Continuum Books. I wrote a monograph about A Tribe Called Quest’s People Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. I’m also finishing up a book about my love affair with the urban environment. My goal is to have a book out every 18-months. I also want to set the books at a manageable page rate (no more than 215 pages) so people won’t get bored and I also want to make sure that the price is affordable enough for people to buy it without having to break
themselves.

NYBF: Who were your literary idols growing up? How did they influence your writing?

ST: When I came to the realization that I wanted to be a writer and then trying to figure out what that meant, my holy trinity was Octavia E. Butler, Amiri Baraka and Chester Himes. Butler for her ‘less is more’ approach, Baraka for the way he attacked social ills and Himes for just telling kick-ass stories. I thought that I was going to be a fiction writer, based on my adoration of the above writers, but I found my voice as an essayist. When Octavia E. Butler died, as tribute, I read all of her books in about a month. It was like losing your mentor. I’m still mulling the possibility of writing a fiction book, as tribute to her, but it is still just a thought. I also read more SF and fantasy than anyone has a right to. I loved Orson Scott Card, Michael Moorcock, Harry Harrison, Steven Barnes, and Ursula K. LeGuin. All of these authors taught me how to establish place and how the physical environment can be a character. Place is very important to me.

NYBF: What are the lessons you hope that your readers take away from the book?

ST: That it can be done. You can get your ideas out there. That if you don’t tell your own story, someone else will, and you will not like the way you are represented. I also want people to recognize that men, especially Black men, are multifaceted. We are not all the same. It may seem as if we are complaining or beating the dead racial horse, but being Black and male is a very difficult road to travel and people need to hear from the source just how difficult it is to carve out an American existence. I don’t want people to pity us but to step out of their comfort zones and hear our versions of our stories. I think that this is the most important lesson.

_______________
What People are Saying
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“There are enough twists and curves to keep any reader titillated. [Big Black Penis] gives insight into the author’s inner workings, showing his vulnerability, fear, and concern in full—something not often granted to black men in America.” —East Bay Express

"Truth comes in many flavors. . . . Big Black Penis is a picnic of spicy nuggets. Open it anywhere and laugh with recognition." —Steven Barnes, author, Lion's Blood and The Cestus Deception

She's Incredible

This is an old friend of mine, Melinda Corazon Foley--met her back during the heyday of the Bay Area spoken word scene. We've had our political and philosophical differences, but I still love her and am always in awe of her talent.

Mr. D'Arby, If You're Nasty

Rooting around my entirely too-big media collection, I was lamenting the fact that most of my favorite Black Art (music, film and literature) was produced before the year 2000. This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy modern Black Art, but it seems as if there isn’t that much worth paying attention to. You have shows like The Wire but—when you get right down to it—it is a better (and serialized) version of New Jack City. NJC was a great movie, but I already seen it the first time that it came out. Girlfriends is a less edgy and co-dependant version of the whitest of white shows—except maybe Friends—Sex in the City. Film? Don’t get me started. Brown Sugar (I have a real soft spot for that movie) and Eve’s Bayou were the best mainstream Black films that have dropped in the past little while. Soul Plane? Caught Up? Waist Deep? I mean, really now. I know that there are many Black Folks getting down artistically, but where are the decent Black films in the mainstream? Is it our fault for not collectively supporting good Black flicks? Most Black Folks are media junkies, so there is an audience (multiple audiences) for all types of Black helmed film and television shows. If you make them, we (hopefully) will come.

However, music has been a bit better. TV on the Radio (the best album of 2006, IMHO), Gnarl’s Barkley, Skye (formerly of Morcheeba), the T-Dot’s own K-OS, all of these albums warm my heart and get mad play on the ipod, but it is rare that they get as much broadly public shine, as say, T.I., Jamie Foxx and other greed lauding, sex hungry, Black Men and Women as commodities…stuff.

So I’m looking through my music and I stumble on Sananda Maitreya’s (formerly Terence Trent D’arby) first solo album, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’arby. I put it on and was transported. The album is incredible. It is the genesis of the sound that he would later dub Post-Millennium Rock (PMR). Dude’s voice is one for conjuring. When his voice travels from the falsetto to the gutbucket blues, you just know that spirits are raising up somewhere and dancing in delight. The comparisons to Prince are warranted, and just like the purple midget, Maitreya/D’arby’s physical appearance belies an almost hyper-masculinity. Back in the day, Sananda/Terence was coming for all the women-folk, and scoring. After reminiscing with the first joint, I immediately put on his second album, Neither Fish Nor Flesh. A revelation. It is like the leap from Tribe’s People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm to The Low End Theory; De La from Three Feet High and Rising to De La Soul is Dead and TV on the Radio’s Herculean power-move from Wild and Desperate Youth-Blood Thirsty Babes to Return to Cookie Mountain. It was the perfection of, and a radical departure from, an established style. And these albums so far eclipsed their predecessors; it led to these artists becoming paragons of their chosen form. Neither Fish is risky, breathtaking, dangerous and thought provoking; everything that art (especially music) is supposed to be, and so much more. Who is now making that Black, Post-Millennium-Rock? Who is being brave enough to push these boundaries on American shores? There are a slim few who are being musically brave but until the vanguard unite us under their banner and our ears and hearts move to a point of sophistication where we will able to vibe on Mos Def, Little John, Floetry and Beyoncé, all in the same play list, I’m just going to have to be content listening to this PMR: established in 1987, perfected in 1989, and banging into the AfroFuture.

Listen to this woman.

Please support Alice Smith. She has one of the best albums of 2007: For Lovers, Dreamers, and Me. Cop it now.

Keep it alive!!

I hate to admit it, but the time of the mixtape (mix CD) and the radio dedication is now over. But all is not lost. Here is a good way to keep the romance alive. Don’t rush into it, though. You should do the following after the eighth or ninth date—or at least be sure that you are with the right person to invest a little time and money. Let me break it down: Mixtape/Radio dedication for the twenty-first century.

1. Buy an iPod Shuffle. Under a hundred dollars from Apple.

2. Scour your (and your partner’s—do this discreetly) music collections and find music that appeals to the both of you (and that is reflective of your relationship). Whether or not you actually heard the music together is immaterial. Just be on point about the intersection of the music and your relationship.

3. Take some care and create a musical biography, up until the point you gift the iPod. Don’t shy away from the bad shit, either. Any good relationship will have jagged points—these help us to be able to identify the beautiful times. This biography should be thoughtful, dramatic, and most of all, honest. The music should reflect what is and was, not what you wanted it to be.

4. Using those cute/ugly little ear buds (or, if you have the capability, plug the iPod into a set of external speakers) listen to the music with your partner. Disclaimer: There are bound to be some choices that your partner may say ‘What the hell is this?’ But that’s okay—at least you are having a conversation about your relationship, instead of it just happening without your full participation.

5. After you’ve listened to the whole thing, explain why you did it.

6. Get to being freaky. Trust me, it will be mind-blowing.

From me to you.