2000
1 November 2000
For me it is the environment: I don't want Alaska drilled for oil so that greedy, selfish Americans can drive SUVs for another twenty years (at which point fossil fuels will be gone from the planet forever, anyway). I want water to be; 1. sufficient for everyone and; 2. fit to drink (could we be any more selfish and wasteful—golf courses in the desert?!?!). I want skies everywhere to be blue. I want my food not to be genetically engineered. I want it to be grown with no pesticides. I want development and sprawl curtailed if it means saving one lousy tick. This seems like the most obvious issue—without a livable environment, none of the rest of it makes one bit of difference (though I would take a flat tax).
It is our bodies: I don't want abortion made illegal. Ever. I don't even want it made more difficult. My tax dollars can pay for it; they pay for enough crap I don't believe in. My favorite bumper sticker from his father's tenure still applies: Bush, stay out of mine.
It is common sense: I don't want my President to be unable to form a coherent sentence. I don't want him to be an alcoholic and drug user who will not admit to his brain-cell-killing behavior even if it is in the past. I don't want my President, a 54-year-old man, calling his father "Daddy," especially when "Daddy" is engineering his dubious political career just as he engineered (or bought) the only successes of his adult life.
It is my faith: I don't want my President to be a born-again Christian. This does not represent my views or beliefs, nor does it have a place in the role of the President.
It is my life: I want to ask, and to tell.
I don't need my elected officials to have charisma—I'm not his or her friend and I'm not looking to date 'em. I don't care if he or she gets head from an intern in the Oval Office on a daily basis—it isn't my business, it won't be the first or last time it happens, nor do these things affect his or her ability to do the job.
I support everyone who will vote for Nader because what he stands for is right and it is the only way a change will come. I voted for Nader four years ago and while it felt wonderful to vote for someone I believed in rather than against someone I did not, I bit my nails in fear that Bob Dole would win because I had cast my vote for someone who could not win. I hope Nader gets his 5%, but this time around I do not want to even remotely risk a Bush win despite my core beliefs in Nader's platform. I do believe that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, because I'm one of those people who would unequivocally vote for Gore if Nader were not running. I'm not naïve enough to believe that Gore will accomplish all of the above that I hope for. (See www.michaelmoore.com, an excellent site for some eye-opening though not wholly unexpected info about Gore and the Democrats.) But I'm also not stupid enough to think that Bush won't destroy it, either.
If you are registered, please vote. What does it take, like, 30 minutes once every four years? (Though you should vote in all elections.) Just remember, it was only in the year that I was born, 1965, that the every American's right to vote was protected by law. That isn't so long ago, and we're voluntarily letting it happen again by not voting. Remember that the Civil Rights Movement was not about music or fashion or rhetoric and it is not ancient history. People in this country in the past century died for the right to vote. If you are not registered this time, register now. It is your duty, not an option; I believe that. If you don't vote, you don't count. Even if you vote for Bush, I would rather that you vote than not. I don't agree with all those cynical people who won't vote because they just don't want to support a corrupt system. I know this—if all of the naysayers registered and voted, the system would change. It's a simple, statistical truth.
13 September 2000
I am a big fan of rap music. I love the verbal dexterity and density of the lyrics. Spoken words set to music? Fabulous! Ice Cube, Public Enemy, Roxanne Shanté, Kool Moe Dee, LL Cool J, Schooly D, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte—I bought and listened to it all back in the proverbial day. Before we got rid of our televisions this summer I was also a big fan of MTV and VH1 (I also used to watch BET's video programs but Santa Fe doesn't get BET!). I could sit and watch those programs for hours. I didn't care how many mindless, repetitive videos I had to sit through. It was on those programs that I discovered Macy Gray, and where I got to see a Les Nubians video. But I even liked all those borderline tasteless songs that my sister has complete contempt for. Juvenile's "Back That Thang Up"—yes, it's supremely tacky, but when's the last time you heard anyone extoll the virtues of "a big fine woman" in a song? And who else used such sumptuous backdrops of Louisiana bayou in their videos? I could overlook all the nasty-looking women shaking their butts at the camera. That was their choice. But I didn't like it enough to buy it. Then thanks to some greedy record companies who decided to sue over MP3s we discovered Napster. I discovered that I could get all of these songs that I had enjoyed. Down came Juvenile, Eve, Jay-Z, etc. No, my use of Napster wasn't taking money from these artists. With the exception of Eve I'd have never bought their songs, anyway.
Now, I am not a prude. Swearing? My sisters used to call me a sailor. Raunchy lyrics don't phase me. I love me some Millie Jackson. Her raunchiness always had humor. I was never offended by the whole "bitch" and "ho" drama. Being neither I knew these songs weren't about me. I bought Lil' Kim's Hardcore. Except for the presence of that wheezing ex-drug dealer ex-boyfriend of hers, loved it. (Can anyone explain to me how that slurring behemoth of banality got to be so revered after his death? Greatest rapper of all time? Please—his lyrics are unintelligible. And did I miss the memo or when did drug dealers, ex- or not, become heroes? Spare me—I can't wait until she and everyone else gets over the Notorious P.I.G. And bless her, the new cd sucks. How can anyone so thoroughly waste a Grace Jones cameo?)
So when I went for the Napster downloads I went for the orginal lyric versions. I just assumed that I would want the artist's original intent, right? Wrong. Either I've suddenly gotten old and uptight, or rappers are filling their songs with so much cussing and pornographic lyrics that it has no originality or meaning anymore. Case in point—Ryde or Die by the Lox featuring Timbaland and Eve. I liked this video and I like Eve. I was willing to overlook her unfortunate association with DMX, who I think should be censored so completely that he disappears. Eve saunters through that video like she doesn't even inhabit the same planet as the rest of those skanky folks. She has such presence compared with the other people in the video that she is just mesmerizing. As played on MTV or BET the lyric goes:
Timbaland: I need a ryde-or-die chick
Eve: I like to rock Prada suits and my stash is fat
I need a ryde-or-die chick
I push the Cadillac truck with my friends in the back
I need a ryde-or-die chick
Stay low drink liquor like to touch 'til I uuunnnhhh
I need a ryde-or-die chick
I rock a iced-out chain with a earring in my tongue The actual lyrics, come to find out, are:
Timbaland: I need a ryde-or-die bitch
Eve: I like to rock Prada suits and my ass is fat
I need a ryde-or-die bitch
I push the Cadillac truck with my friends in the back
I need a ryde-or-die bitch
Smoke 'dro drink liquor like to fuck 'til I cum
I need a ryde-or-die bitch
I rock a icy ass chain with a earring in my tongue
Now, is this necessary? "Touch 'til I uuunnnhhh" wasn't clear enough? Bitch is, what, cooler than "chick?" Drinking isn't enough, you also gotta get high? I was really surprised, I have to say. This wasn't just a matter of a few words bleeped out for the censors. This was a totally different version of the song. Suddenly Eve didn't look so smooth in that video, you know, hearing the Lox rap "you triflin' whore." Is he talking about her, the sensuous, beautiful woman in the video? Does she agree that she's a triflin' whore? And where do you go lyrically after "fuck 'til I cum?" I mean, you've said it. You can't say it any more explicitly. This doesn't demonstrate the real power of words to convey so much more. And so it was with all of the other popular rap songs I downloaded. "Back That Thang Up" became "Back That Ass Up" and the lyric I loved, "youse a big fine woman," was really "youse a fine motherfucker." Oh, I feel so much sexier now. "Can I get a what what" is "Can I get a fuck you." Yes, I think you can, Jay-Z. You can also get a thesaurus and get creative.
So I went back and downloaded all the censored radio cuts. I like them much better. They're more interesting. To say they are more subtle isn't exactly true. The same flavor is there; the meanness and ugliness and simplemindedness is not. Anybody can say "fuck" or "bitch" or whatever. There's nothing wrong with the words in and of themselves. But only real artists can make them mean something. I will continue to buy the artists whose work inspires me. As I said, for the most part that wasn't these artists, anyway. But these are the ones at the top of the charts and on the radio. These are today's rap stars. And sometimes it works. Eve gives me chills with the brutal honesty of "Love Is Blind" and it isn't exactly G-rated, either in language or content. I'd much rather she give me chills than leave me cold.
3 August 2000 (transferred from What's New?)
You know, when you're out there in cyberspace it's funny sometimes just to see how people interpret you. Another artist's page has been sending me a lot of traffic, and so I visited his page (I had already linked to his) and discovered that I am a featured site. He also created a small gif of one of my photographs, which I kind of like. Maybe I'll use it on this site somewhere. I don't guess I would have ever thought of my images in quite the same aesthetic category as his work or the work on the other sites he links to, kind of the "ebony queen" aesthetic, but I'm pleased to have new visitors to this site. Maybe they'll get a slightly different perspective, or maybe I will. The lingerie company that posted to the guestbook because they would like to engage my professional services was also, um, interesting, considering the model featured on their site who can also be found at Hooter's. I should be flattered. It's nice that they liked my site, though, and took the time to post. I didn't, however, appreciate the guy who E-mailed me to let me know that he preferred my more slender body—when you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything! Didn't your mother ever teach you that?
I think blackplanet.com is also sending me quite a few folks, though I can't figure out how to navigate their site to find the link! An interesting note, anyway: I average nearly 3,000 hits per day on this site, and since its inception, the majority of people come to this site through the essay "Hardcore" that I wrote about black female bodybuilders. Judging from the search keywords used (yes, you can tell that about site visitors) I don't think they were anticipating a museum catalog essay. But that's okay, because at least some of them are reading long enough to find the links to some of the bodybuilders' sites in the essay. Really, it's the variety of visitors and responses I get that keeps it quite interesting. Well, the on-topic folks are great and interesting, too, but rarely do they make me laugh.
15 July 2000
I've had a lot of jobs, some related to art, some not. I used to think my worst professional experience was working at the Schomburg Center; probably, all in all, the worst year of my life. New York was not for me; I learned that year what it means to truly be a Westerner. And then a few years later I ended up with two of the lousiest supervisors in my last year working at the Getty, just the sight of whom made my skin crawl. (For the record, I don't mean Ken.) Enduring them quickly surpassed the dim memory of the Schomburg. But indisputably my worst professional experience to date has been trying a publish a book. I'm not entirely sure how and where it all went wrong—this was voluntary, after all, it isn't like either of us was a professor hustling for tenure or something, and we weren't being paid— though I'm fairly certain that mistake #1 was going with the publisher/editor that we did.
So, why am I putting this vitriolic diatribe on my site? Because this has been consuming me for the better part of two years and I was just about to curl up in a ball tonight and stare excrutiatingly at the wall when I decided instead to get it out by writing. I guess I'm still (barely) a little too classy to name names, but those who know me will know who all these folks are. I hope none of the rest of you ever have equivalents to them in your lives.
First, the "we" is me and Deborah Willis. [Disclaimer—all thoughts expressed here are mine, not Deb's.] We met when I replaced her at the Schomburg Center in 1992, and throughout that year I kept calling her saying "do I really have to stay two years? ...a year? ...til the end of this week?" That experience taught me, thankfully at a fairly early age, that the job comes last. First you have to like the place where you make your home. Second, you have to love the people around you. A job is a job. As long as your time is not your own, as long as you're giving over the better part of your waking hours to do someone else's work in exchange for money, they're all the same, essentially. I did learn that. Anything can look good on paper; I suspect that's why my résumé looks better than my reality. Deb had been there a dozen years. She had established that department. She knew. That was the genesis of our friendship—she understood.
At that point, in 1993, I had not completed my MFA. I went to UNM, a school notorious for not graduating its MFA's because there was a written component to the degree, and once you'd had your show and completed the course work it was cheaper to keep enrolling for the minimum hours than to start paying back student loans fresh out of art school. But eventually they realized that they weren't moving any of us off the rosters so I hunkered down to write my "dissertation." From an original idea, many years ago, to write about Southern photography, I ended up writing about the black female body in French photography, 1850 - 1890. I couldn't then and still don't speak a word of French, so don't ask how I settled on that place and period, except for my awareness of the wealth of images that survive. I finished in 1996. Deb and I got to talking and decided we would pool our resources and knowledge and write a book on the black female body in photography. It hadn't really been done before. Her expertise was black photographers; mine was the broader history of photography (though I don't mean to suggest that my few years of research was equivalent to her pioneering work in the field). It seemed like a great idea. We each knew of some fantastic images. By that time I was even working for a private collector who collected nineteenth century travel photography, which encompassed some of the earliest photography made of people of color. Not ever having been a connected kind of person, this seemed kinda like kismet or something, a good sign at least.
Well, initially we couldn't convince anyone to publish the book. We finally went with the press that we did because, a. they said yes. I remember that being our primary criteria, plus the editor there had always wanted to work with Deb. We signed the contracts, grateful and happy that we were going to get to do the book. Now, this was a university press, so basically we received no money up front and all book- related expenses, in this instance prints and permissions for more than 200 images, had to come out of our pockets. We were still undaunted because we believed it was an important book. The text was due in June 1998; we were two months late getting all the permissions and stuff together and completing final edits. I can testify that this was an excrutiating summer; my apartment was sweltering and our computer was in the hottest room of the house, plus I was writing another book that summer (from now on I will only work-for- hire) and working full-time. It was a lot, but still, I managed to get it all done because I was so grateful that it was just happening. Securing all the prints and permissions had been an arduous and expensive process, but we were heartened to see how many people waived their reproductions fees to allow their images to be included in the book. That, I'd have to say, was the high point of this experience—witnessing people's generosity. I Fedexed the text and reproductions to the publisher in early August 1998. And then...nothing. We didn't receive any written comments on the text until April 2000.
Now, in this interim, I asked around a lot, this being my first experience with the publishing world. Was this usual? Having to pay it all out- of-pocket—yes, I was told, this was typical of university presses. Okay, lesson learned. At least I had an additional income from the for-hire book, so it didn't bankrupt me. Does it usually take so long to get editor's comments back? Everyone said no, that wasn't normal. And we heard nothing; a year came and went, we called, sent e-mails, how's it going?, but all we heard was that some of the permissions were still outstanding and the book couldn't go into production until those were received. Wait a minute, aren't we going to receive text edits before it goes into production? Apparently not. You're thinking about layout, before the text is edited? But still we heard nothing. By now I'm being assured that this is assuredly not normal, but what do you do when your editor doesn't respond to your e-mails or phone calls? (I will admit that I can be curt yet withering in an e-mail or memo, especially when I am frustrated, though, honestly, I wilt in face-to-face confrontations).
Truthfully I ignored the outstanding permissions, stubbornly thinking, 'we ought to see some edits first.' After about a year and a half, I broke down and starting following up on those; that was around December 1999. Our initials readers had sent back wholly supportive, if not particularly instructive, comments, so we really had nothing to go on at that point. I'm as vain as the next guy about my writing, but I was also quite used to being edited daily and some constructive criticism wouldn't have made me flinch. That was a little disappointing and, as it turned out, a harbinger of edits to come. In April, a week before I went on vacation, I got the "edited" text in the mail from the editor. Her comment to me was, and I quote:
It occurred to me the other day that the marked up ms is just sitting on my shelf, awaiting the final permssions. So I wondered if I should send it to you so that you could input my editing changes on the disk.
Goodlord, I hope I'm not violating copyright by quoting her! How long had it just been sitting there? I guess, at least, I shoulda been grateful it was on the shelf and not in the corner on the floor (at least she said shelf.) Anyway, as I was about to leave the country and since it had been a year and 8 months, anyway, I couldn't see what the hurry was, so I shelved it until my return. When I finally sat down in May to go through the edits, I was initially relieved and then quickly grew suspicious—the text was hardly edited at all. Honestly, a good percentage of the pages didn't have a mark on them; the paper was still so crisp it felt as though it had never been handled. I couldn't believe it, how could a book need so little editing I asked her? Oh, it hasn't been copyedited yet, I was told. Now, I ain't stupid. Copyediting is spell and grammar check, essentially, copyediting doesn't explain page after page of content unmarked. Gee, we're just brilliant writers, I thought sarcastically, and I called up a trusted colleague to ask her to read and edit the text for us. Everyone should have friends so generous and kind as to volunteer to read and edit a book at the eleventh hour. And being a terrific reader and editor she quickly confirmed my suspicions—this book hadn't been edited. What is going on here? Which brought me to that curled-up position this evening—I had spent 2½ hours on the phone with my friend this afternoon starting to go through the editing the she did for us that the editor hadn't done.
So, to everyone who has inquired about the publication date of The Black Female Body in Photogaphy, this is where it stands. It is in my possession and not going anywhere in the immediate future. It needs editing. And it is breaking my heart, knowing what we created and what could have been; this is a subject near and dear to me, and a project to which both Deb and I (not to mention my friend) have given countless, not always bloodless hours. And in the past couple of years this has given me enough grief that I don't care if I'm shooting myself in the foot by writing candidly about this. I do a fair amount of freelance writing, but this is the first time it was my (our) idea, my (our) baby, as it were. And it's just gone horribly wrong, the worst possible first experience you can imagine. I won't be doing this again, not for a publisher.
I will write here in my online journal, and I will write in my paper-bound journals when I remember to, at home, and I will write when someone hires me to write, but conceive of and propose a book like this? Never again. I know, never say never, but it's like what you fear about commercializing your art or anything else that is personal and dear to you. Once you involve an outside party it can take on a life that you didn't envision, that you wouldn't have hoped for in your most twisted thoughts. When I was in graduate school one of my advisors, whom I admired greatly but of whom I was also a bit scared, once wrote on one of my papers "You have a felicitious way with words" and she later told me that if I decided I didn't want to be a photographer I could always become a writer. I've never forgotten that; it is directly responsible for me doing just that. Her opinion meant a great deal to me and made me extremely proud. I feel really lucky that I have a
full-time job which I enjoy (finally!) that allows me to eat and pay my bills, so I do not have to struggle in that regard, and I can occasionally write about a variety of subjects that are presented to me, and I still have enough curiosity and interest in what I do that I retain several ideas for books that for now will remain just that—my ideas. I am desperately trying not to let this experience corrupt that love of writing and sense of accomplishment that I associate with her early encouragement and with loving what I am able to do with words.
Maybe in my next installment, as Carolyn tells me I should since I'm always going on about it at home, I will rail against corporations and SUVs and other gross polluters and all manner of big businesses that have destroyed this country and our earth, and I will extoll the virtues of buying organic and recycling and not consuming more than you need. (I've even got a book idea wrapped up in that, but I'm not sharing it!) My sister used to call me an organic pusher but I noticed a few different products in her fridge last time I visited. God help me, I moved to Santa Fe, I'm supposed to be calm and at peace with the world, right? Until next time...
20 June 2000
This is something I wrote a couple of years ago and came across recently; I rather liked it. Really, I'm honing my writing skills and am also using this journal as a sounding board.
my brother-in-law is a doctor but i go to the free clinic. i have no insurance. i have been dizzy for 2 months now.
as i sit in the waiting room a skinny older man comes in, clean, carrying the front section of the l.a.times. there's something familiar and then i place him—he's hollywood madam heidi fleiss' father, paul fleiss, los feliz obstetrician. i'd seen that on the news. madonna's obstetrician—i had recently seen him on one of those entertainment programs, trailed by reporters after she gave birth. the clinic was heavily weighted toward childbearing, as the first page of the questionaire they gave me to fill out was almost nothing but questions related to childbirth and sexual history. it was nicely ironic, i thought, that a millionaire superstar with a half-latina baby was getting the same care as the group of heavily made-up homegirls who sat behind me giggling and comparing stories about detox. i begin to feel guilty that i am only dizzy, and that i was planning to go and get 20 dollars worth of chinese take-out as soon as i got my free medical attention. at 3:00 promptly, the time of my appointment, they call me in to weight me and take my pulse and blood pressure. offer me a state-mandated syphillis test which i declined, all the while hoping i wouldn't have to explain that i'm gay as two hard-looking girls get measured back-up- against-the-wall behind me with nothing dividing us providing any of us with privacy. i didn't want them to overhear. it didn't seem necessary.
then they sent me out into the corridor to wait.
3:36
the woman who was here before me beside whom i sat is in now, the frantic words 'county' and 'diabetic' spilling in desperate tones out into
the hallway, in marked contrast to the way in which she had sat calmly beside me for a half hour scratching over a crossword puzzle. no privacy. i had glanced down at her feet, diabetic feet, trying to determine her illness from them while being careful not to tread on them as i adjusted my newly weighed 204 pounds on the cheap metal chair. my dizziness had come back right on cue this morning after a weekend reprieve and i was prepared to go in speculating about ear infections and vision and barometric pressure. i was going to be an easy patient, i hoped, and poor as i was sitting there i couldn't help but feel a pathetic sense of superiority that at least i had not had any children that i'd had to drag in there, depending on someone's good graces. still i knew that i was no different, even as i lied about half my income, afraid that what was barely sustaining me would still be deemed too much to warrant me getting off without paying. i longed to get home to call my girlfriend and recount the whole thing; gazing out the window onto palm trees and pale adobe-colored houses with blue-trimmed windows i made a mental note to drive around our neighborhood with carolyn someday, picking out bits and pieces for our dream house.
3:45
the woman waiting next to me has beautiful skin, a cute zebra-skinned dress and sandals with daisies down the front; she was called to the corridor while i was still in the waiting room. she's lovely, i thought, wondering what her malady could be, how often she comes here, if they will heal her. a place of healing, this, that's what it is, with low-maintenance dull-beige walls easy and cheap to clean and repaint, bordered along the baseboard in gray with gray vinyl flooring. that's all there is to see in here. the patients provide the visuals.
out comes ms. diabetic. in goes s. harris, only the second black person i've seen besides me and she is quite lovely, too, like a model. at least poor people look good, i thought. paul fleiss just went into an examining room with a woman who kinds of looks like him and who was asking him about the madonna news thing. 'yeah, yeah, they follow me everywhere,' he mumbled, shuffling her in. there's a braless filipina in a skimpy red dress with noisy kids who looks like she'll be one hell of a mess one day, wrecking her life and theirs, if she's not already. nobody's speaking english, and we are all the same. waiting, with something physically wrong with us.
i crave the chinese food, slippery shrimp and possibly pan-fried dumplings, food i can neither afford nor do i need to further pad my 204 pounds. but i will very likely go get it, telling myself i deserve its comfort after this experience. my ass starts to ache as i shift uncomfortably on the chair.
maybe they've forgotten me.
'and don't forget to show them the lump on your head that won't go away either' i tell myself as i lean back against the wall, feel the tenderness there. i tried to wash my hair so they wouldn't be reluctant to touch it. it's a few days old. it ought to be okay.
i also don't rule out stress as the cause of all of this.
3:58
it's a doctor's office; i really haven't waited all that long at all i tell myself as i suddenly wonder if i've parked somewhere i could get ticketed. the woman with paul fleiss comes out, legs hairy as any man's. i wonder if paul fleiss will see me. the corridor is emptying out.
4:01
the beautiful model-like black woman has been sent back to the corridor. she has exquisite, thin dreads, exactly like i would want. i want to go over and ask her about them but i feel awkward and not a little envious. i sit forward in my chair to relieve my back. suddenly she's gone, called to the dispensary. i blew that chance. as she walked out i got a better look at them, probably not her real hair. maybe i couldn't achieve that look after all.
4:06
someone named carlu gets called. i'm feeling antsy. one of the aides is eating chips on the sly which reminds me i've packed more than 200 lbs onto my 5'6" frame. waiting. dizzy.
i start to see myself as a real part of this health care debate, remembering that the health care reforms i just voted for didn't pass. democracy. for the insured.
4:12
i'm starting to get cold. i've worn only a t-shirt and my girlfriend's jeans. we are the same size except for our waists. they fit me fine, a little snug from the last wash. i'm wishing i had a sweater. i'm wishing i had a good job with benefits.
i'm wishing i were home on the couch with chinese food in my lap and the tv screen glaring at me.
ms. red-hot is laughing with her kids, her dress zipper down about 3 inches in the back to alleviate the tightness. ms. zebra is now next to me and getting antsy and sniffly and curious about what i'm writing. there's almost no one left in the hallway now but us.
4:17
i make up my mind that at 4:30 i'm going to ask if i've been forgotten. the grace that my girlfriend and friends often praise me for always alienates me in these situations. the chips that the aides have been surreptitiously munching are doritos and the smell is starting to get to me.
i'm glad i found the small notebook in my bag which has given me something to do.
4:20
4:29
i asked if i was still on the list to be seen and was given the standard response that a doctor will call for me. i'm suspicious, though a man with a household of eight who had been in the waiting room with me at 3:00 just came into the corridor, but he seems to be waiting for someone who's already in getting treated. maybe i wouldn't have waited here this long is carolyn hadn't admonished me, told me an ear infection left untreated could become permanent.
carlu is called again and i'm hoping they're just botching my name. no—a little asian boy, with the man i recognize from 3:00. they must be saving me for last. i must be special. paul fleiss is going home.
maybe they think i'm a reporter. at this point i am willing to stand up and read aloud every word i've written if i can just get called in.
4:33
i would make a vow not to be poor from here on out if i thought it was entirely within my control, but i'm not lazy, or stupid, and i know it isn't, entirely. i am poor, and have chosen a dilettante's profession that i am unfortunately good at. lucky me.
sometime closer to 5:00
i get called in and am so relieved i don't even notice what time it finally is. the doctor who hardly glances up at all speaks to me in spanish. i figure he's tired and it's the end of the day so i don't bother to tell him i barely speak it because luckily i'm understanding everything he's saying. i explain everything that i think to him, remembering the bump which he never even looks at and he checks my ears, my breathing, as his responses get lengthier and he begins to speak english to me. it's all over soon enough and i am dispatched to wait at the dispensary for my prescriptions, also on the house. while i sit back in the waiting room for them to be filled i read the wish list board set up for the holiday dinner for the homeless, and remember that i have made no thanksgiving plans myself. i hesitate to go up and ask about donating something for fear that i will be reproached for having just accepted these free services while being able to give, and i make a mental note to contact them later to find out how i can help. it's only a small something. he calls me for my prescription and a little more than 2 hours later i am back out into the twlight of evening, darting across sunset boulevard. it hasn't cost me anything but my time, and i am grateful for it. i later get the chinese food.
19 June 2000
Back to movies and sex, the thoughts that got me started on this journal in the first place. (Maybe I'm just a frustrated movie reviewer.) I saw Shaft over the weekend. Now, I had read the Samuel L. Jackson interview on E! online and being perpetually interested in the representation of black women, particularly sexual black women, I was particularly interested in his comment that "Yeah, I got a woman in this movie." Very unusual for black leads in mainstream movies (Halle Berry and Thandie Newton notwithstanding). I had also read that John Singleton was made to cut out most of the sex scenes before the studio would release the movie. Uh huh. I figured I'd see what's what.
So there I am, and I live in a small southwestern city with very few black people, and I got to the theater early and it was just me and a very odd older white man, and I thought, oh my, this is going to be interesting. But the theater slowly but surely filled up; in fact, it was the largest audience I've seen at a movie since I've lived here. This was a Friday matinee, 2:15 p.m. on opening day. (Don't other people work?) There were even three other black folks, a lot for this city.
Now, it always interests me how people end up at a particular show. There was a trio a few rows in front of me; what appeared to be a father and his two late-teen/early-twenties children, a son and daughter. The son announces he has no idea what the movie is about; he offers that it's based on "that song." The daughter has never heard of the song; the son asks the father if it's based on a TV show from the '70s. The dad doesn't know. I'm slightly mystified—what made them want to see this movie?
Then, an older white woman asks me if I'll move down one seat so she and her companions can sit together. I grudgingly agree (it afforded me a slightly better view, anyway). She turns to me and asks, "So, are all the cool people in Santa Fe going to be here?" I simply smiled and told her, "I really don't know." So that's it, I thought. Being white and going to see Shaft is so radical it's cool. If only I'd known I'd have dressed a little more ethnically, given her a thrill. (The previous weekend I had been eating dinner on an outside patio when at least three different carloads of teenaged white boys came thumping down the street listening to rap, mostly Ice Cube, acting vaguely threatening and definitely believing they were subversive. Such co-opted culture alternately creeps me out and amuses me.)
The opening credits roll over a montage of black bodies having sex. Go John, I think to myself. Make some folks squirm. And then...nothing. Shaft doesn't get the girl. He doesn't get any girl. Oh, he gets a thoroughly wasted Sonja Sohn propositioning him from behind the safe distance of a bar (eliciting the now too-repeated response "It's my duty to please that booty"). It isn't that I wanted to see any early '70s-style pimpin' and ubiquitous hos, but, come on, this is Shaft. It was the legend that filled that theater, and a big part of that legend was what theater audiences had never seen before: a powerful, positive, sexual black man. Not Sidney Poitier. (Think James Earl Jones in Claudine—you never saw him again in that kind of role, did you? Or even Jackson in Eve's Bayou—he's a thoroughly credible leading man.) Richard Roundtree gets more implicit play than that as he exits the same club with two young women on either arm. And now we've come to the conclusion of the sexual portion of our program. Please put away any further expectations.
So what's up here? Are the Hollywood powers-that-be really that afraid of black sexuality, still? We've all seen more heat in toothpaste commercials. As Jackson himself points out, they didn't cut any of the violence, just the sex. I ended up not liking the movie much; it lacked in more ways than this one. I wanted to attribute it all to the butcher job the censors presumably did, but some of the blame has to lie with Singleton, whose other film's I've enjoyed. (Well, I can't say I enjoyed Rosewood, I found the depiction of the brutality absolutely harrowing.) Perhaps it's the difference between being Gordon Parks at the dawn of the 1970s when Hollywood was in a creative and commercial slump, and Singleton having the freedom and confinement of major studio backing in 2000 when black culture has never been more marketable. Something, some vibe, is missing in this film. Jackson is perfectly cast, but then he doesn't get to do much that's interesting, or even heroic. Anybody can aim and shoot a gun; even when it's aimed at the bad guys, how entertaining can this be anymore? Won't we ever get saturated with watching violence perpetrated by and against people of color? Vanessa Williams, she's fabulous—she was Miss America, after all (and looks glorious on the cover of the July 2000 Essence)—and I know she was pregnant during filming and all, but she's thoroughly wasted, too. Where's her role? What's her role? Give the sisters something better to do next time. Richard Roundtree was still the star of this movie, (although Jeffrey Wright was mesmerizing) and the potential chemistry between him and Jackson was interesting, but nothing is developed there, either.
So Shaft was the number one movie at the box office this week. I did my part, hoping to boost ticket sales. Check back in two weeks, though. See if I'm not the only one who wasn't convinced.
6 March 2000
It has been a long time since I've contributed to my journal. Actually, it hasn't really been since August, but in moving and transferring files I accidentally deleted any later entries I had written, so I am beginning again.
This past weekend I participated in a panel discussion on the subject "Artist or Black Artist?" One of the reasons I readily agreed to participate was that I knew, in traveling, I would find some time to sit and write, something I haven't managed to do very much at all since I moved. While preparing myself earlier that day, I started to write my response to the question, so I thought I would include it here.
Nothing profound, just my musings.
I don't know what black art is.
I am black and I make art.
About myself About my mother. About history
And the bodies of black women.
I make photographs.
Photography is not a "black art."
I study work by other artists who are black.
Who are interested in being black.
(Do all the black folks in Cambridge
know what
Mr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is doing for them? What is he doing for them?)
In this culture,
If you are black and you make art about yourself, your people,
you make black art.
Think about what it is you want to do
as an artist.
To whom do you speak?
Frankly, most white people don't see you.
Particularly if you are a woman
of color.
But don't cater to black folks; as a group they are
far from perfect art consumers.
But they are watching.
Look out.
Am I a black artist?
That's how I'm here.
Am I a black artist?
No.
I don't know what that means.
