This is my friend Tyrone’s Blog…
It’s a lot of fun.

Travels with the Make-up Guy

I’m race people. I come from a long line of race people. People who raised me to be a black, proud, smart, well mannered lady. It’s a sentence I don’t feel should even be written in the 21st century, but it’s the sentence that keeps me from writing about race. I’m so concerned now with being multi-culti, and my blackness so intrinsic to my being that writing about it seems obsolete to me. But we’re in trouble and my talking about it and not writing about it is part of the problem.

I had Tyrone put a texturizer in my hair, blow it out and straighten it…
And it’s straight and all Nona Hendrix right? (Or like Malcolm X before he went to jail.) And then I watched John Henrik Clarke’s “A Long and Mighty Walk” and went and washed the straight out of my hair.
I love having an Afro.
I love looking and being black. I do believe in race. It’s very important to me. It fills me with an incredible sense of pride.

But that all still sounds very pedestrian to me. Simple statements that don’t reflect the complexities of the subject. My intersection with race is directly tied to my particular environment. But since my environs have evolved so has my spin on race. I’m not of the school that race doesn’t exist because I don’t live in the world of people not noticing my race first. I mean, I’m black. People who try to describe others without race when race is the obvious distinction annoy me. “The guy, you know he had on a baseball cap and a blue jacket. He was standing over here.” “You mean the black guy?” “Um, yeah.”
Now isn’t that more to the point. It isn’t as if calling someone black is an indictment. All of this political correctness is making it difficult for any serious conversations on race. By being so obtuse, we are denying a fact of life on these shores. And living in a dream world. The fact that simple descriptions are politically loaded- that’s the problem. I’m offended if I’m the only black somewhere (like at work) and people go ten ways around the moon to describe me as opposed to “she’s the black girl” (although I guess I’m quickly moving from girlhood.)

But here in NY, surrounded by the people I’m surrounded by, race is even more complicated than my Chicago definitions. I love it. It confuses me and challenges me.

And I watched Amistad today and wish the straight-backed pride of being Africans, of being sure in our skins, of being wonderful (and boy I love Djimon Hounsou) was the reality of the totality of my people today. But the calling of ancestors, regardless of its cinematic merit, should be a common virtue (practice?) of all in the African Diaspora.
I’m quite aware of the fact that I wouldn’t be here if someone hadn’t chosen to live in deplorable conditions, chose to live in general, for me to exist. I am the promise of things unseen. I am the promise of many sacrifices and I must succeed because of the sacrifices and choices made for me to draw breath. Regardless of what Budweiser tells me late at night, I will fulfill this promise. My writing this is a testament to my belief and fulfillment of this promise.

I love Oprah. I can’t watch her show all the time, because… well I just can’t (a recent incident with a pair of boots she had on has kinda set me off the whole “watching her show thing”). But as a powerful black lady…I adore her. As a writer (and a budding capitalist) her bookclub selection is up there with me winning the Pulitzer. I didn’t read the Frey book because I’m not in the least bit interested in any rehab stories, but the story around it… well- let’s put it like this: Michael Jackson was acting up again this week and I didn’t even google it. So here are a few words from me on the spanking she gave this lying sack of….

There’s not enough money in the world for me to be in trouble with Oprah. I’d have been laying on the ground crying and holding on to her feet screaming “Please! Please Miss Oprah!!!! Please don’t be mad at me. I’m so sorry. I’m the worst. Please. I love you so much. It was that lady. She made me do it. She treated me like Miss Millie treated you in The Color Purple. You know how that is. Oh, Lord. I think I’m gonna fall out. Please!!! ARGHHHHHHH!!!!! PLEASE!!!. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’ll go pull sex offenders out of cars or playgrounds, or wherever they hole up. I’ll pay more attention to Dr. Phil. I’ll wear the right sized bra. Please don’t relinquish me to a place where Miss Oprah’s light doesn’t shine on me. ARGHHHHHHH!!!!! Sweet Jesus, NOOOOOO!!!!!”
but that’s me.
Excerpts From ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’
The following are excerpts from a transcript of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” from Jan. 26, 2006, featuring the author James Frey and Nan A. Talese, the publisher of his book:

OPRAH WINFREY: I have to say it is–it is difficult for me to talk to you, because I really feel duped. I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers. And I think, you know, it’s such a gift to have millions of people to read your work, and that bothers me greatly. And so now as I sit here today, I–I don’t know what is truth and I don’t know what isn’t. So first of all, I wanted to start with–with The Smoking Gun report titled “The Man Who Conned Oprah.” And I want to know, were they right?

Mr. FREY: I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate, absolutely. I think they did a good job detailing some of the discrepancies between some of the actual facts of the events and…

Ms. WINFREY: What they said was that you lied about the length of time that you spent in jail. How long were you in jail?

Mr. FREY: I was in jail for–they were right about that, I was in for a few hours, not–not the time…

Ms. WINFREY: Not 87 days?

Mr. FREY: Correct.

***********

Ms. WINFREY: … [W]as there a Lily?

Mr. FREY: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that–that’s been a question for a long time before…

Ms. WINFREY: Well, the thing that doesn’t make any sense to me is, if you were in jail for 87 days, and you say on page 420 of the book you and Lily are saying goodbye and, ‘I have to go to jail in Ohio and it’s only going to be for a few months and I’m going to write you every day.’ And I have to tell you, James, that when I was reading that book and I get to the last page and Lily has hung herself and you arrived, you know, the day that she hang–was–was hung, and I couldn’t even believe it. I’m, like, gasping. I’m calling people, like, `Oh, my God, this happened.’ So if you weren’t in jail all that time and you’re telling her to hold on, why couldn’t you get to her?

Mr. FREY: I mean, what actually happened was I went through Ohio. I was there very briefly. I went down to North Carolina, where I was living at the time…

Ms. WINFREY: Mm-hmm.

Mr. FREY: …and I was closing up my life there.

Ms. WINFREY: Uh-huh.

Mr. FREY: The process was vastly accelerated from what I wrote in the book. She did…

Ms. WINFREY: I don’t know what that means. What does that mean, “vastly accelerated”?

Mr. FREY: I mean, it happened in a much shorter period of time. And we were planning on meeting up with each other, and–and she committed suicide before we met up.

*********

Ms. WINFREY: I called defending you on “Larry King” because I believed that the essence of the book was true, and at the time, I didn’t know Smoking Gun was true or not, because you had had a strong relationship with my producers and they so believed in you. And we had asked the publisher if this was true when we started to get criticism after the book–after we had announced the book, and the publishers had all told us it was true. So that’s why I trusted you and believed you. But this is–this is the thing. Why would you lie–why do you have to lie about the time you spent in jail? Why did you have to do that?

Mr. FREY: I mean, I think part of what happened with a number of the things in the book is when you go through an experience like the one I went through, you develop different coping mechanisms, and I think one of the coping mechanisms I developed was sort of this image of myself that was greater probably than–not probably, that was greater than what I actually was. In order to get through the experience of–of the addiction, I thought of myself as being tougher than I was and badder than I was, and it–it helped me cope. And when I was writing the book, I–instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image.

Ms. WINFREY: And did you cling to that image because that’s how you wanted to see yourself, or did you cling to that image because that would make a better book?

Mr. FREY: Probably both.

********

Ms. WINFREY: Nan Talese is the publisher and editor in chief of “A Million Little Pieces” and the senior vice president of Doubleday, which is a division of Random House. … Nan is the person who would have overseen the publication of James’ book, which you did, right?

Ms. NAN A. TALESE (Publisher of “A Million Little Pieces”): Correct.

Ms. WINFREY: Correct. And so, Nan, James has admitted that he embellished his memoir. And I–what responsibility do you take in that?

Ms. TALESE: Well, I can only tell you how the book came to me and how I read it. And I read the manuscript as a memoir and I thought it was an extraordinary story of a man with drug addiction, going through hell of both the addiction and the recovery and the process. And I thought the book was absolutely riveting. And you talked about the novocaine and you know, you were implying that perhaps that was a red flag, that the publisher should have said, ‘Hey, this couldn’t possibly be true.’

Ms. WINFREY: Yes!

Ms. TALESE: In fact, I have had a root canal without novocaine, not particularly because of the choice but because of a extraordinary inept dentist.

Ms. WINFREY: OK.

Ms. TALESE: And I’m here and I, you know, it’s really awful. It’s very much as James described it. So I didn’t think that it wasn’t a red flag to me.

Ms. WINFREY: Do you–I don’t know why that wouldn’t be a red flag to anybody, Nan. I’m sorry, even if you’d had it yourself. That whole–the whole book, one of the reasons why we’re all so taken with the book is because it feels and reads so sensationally that it–it–you you can’t believe that all of this happened to one person. When did you realize that James hadn’t told the truth in his memoir?

Ms. TALESE: I learned about the–the jail, the two things that were in Smoking Gun at the same time you did. And I was dismayed to know that. But I had not–I mean, as an editor, do you ask someone, ‘Are you really as bad as you are?’

Ms. WINFREY: Yes!

Ms. TALESE: Because someone…

Ms. WINFREY: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, you do. Yes.

********

Ms. WINFREY: You never questioned it?

Ms. TALESE: No.

Ms. WINFREY: OK. Because I’m thinking as a reader, up until this moment, sitting on the show, that Lily hung herself. Well, obviously, after all these reports came out, I started to think, `Well, if he wasn’t in jail, if that’s true, and he wasn’t in jail all that time and he was trying to get to Lily, then maybe there wasn’t even a Lily.’

Ms. TALESE: Well, no, I understand that. And I understand the questioning. The tragedy is not in the hanging or slitting her wrists. It’s in the suicide. And I’m not excusing it.

*********

Ms. WINFREY: Let me say this: Eight days after we announced this book, and it had already made the bestsellers list, we were contacted–eight days afterwards–by a former Hazelton counselor challenging the truth of James’s memoir. And our producer told me about it, because this woman is now saying that what James is saying in the book isn’t true. I said, `Well, did she work with James? Was she there when James was there?’ I said, `Well, I–I–I don’t know if what she’s saying is true. What you need to do is contact the publisher. Contact the publisher and ask them if it’s true.’

So, we contacted your representatives, and we were told by them that the claims that this woman was making, we were assured that there was no validity to those claims. And we asked if you, your company stood behind James’s book as a work of non-fiction at the time, and they said absolutely. And they were also asked if their legal department had checked out the book, and they said yes. So in a press release sent out for the book in 2004 by your company, the book was described as brutally honest and an altering look at–at addiction. So how can you say that if you haven’t checked it to be sure?

Ms. TALESE: You know, Oprah, I mean, I think this whole experience is very sad. It’s very sad for you, it’s very sad for us…

WINFREY: It’s not sad for me, it’s embarrassing and disappointing for me. That it’s embarrassing and disappointing to me.

Ms. TALESE: But I don’t–I do not know how you get inside another person’s mind…

WINFREY: Well, this is my point, Nan: otherwise, then anybody can just walk in off with the street with whatever story they have…

Ms. TALESE: But you know…

WINFREY: …and say “this is my story.”

Ms. TALESE: That is absolutely true, and people in publishing and editor…

WINFREY: Well, that needs to change.

The Phat Lady Sings: ON FEELING FAT

This was written for my brother’s magazine years ago:

When given the prospect of writing on freedom, particularly the freedom of not wearing underwear, I was elated. Finally, some forum to express my little slice of rebellion , however seemingly mundane, against the repressive bit of binding holding in my holiest of holes. When I was young the thought- the very idea – of me not wearing underwear was as close to sin as taking the Lord’s name in vain (which I also didn’t get because- What does she care?) The first time I didn’t wear them was an accident. When my grandmother found out she obviously didn’t it was as funny as I did. I might as well had been selling pussy for the reaction I got. So after that, I didn’t dare go bare until I was an adult. The era ended when I would ask my two best friends why they weren’t wearing any panties, and their answer was “Why should I?” I couldn’t answer them so off came the drawa’s.
It’s one of my many struggles against social mores. It’s me knowing I’m a sexual being at every moment of everyday. Men find it sexy, but more importantly I find it sexy. There’s a bit of exhibitionism to it. There’s a sense of power that comes with being able to hike up my skirt anywhere I choose and take a whiz. To have to check my sexual thoughts, as men do, to make sure I’m not sitting in a puddle.
But moreover, it’s my little secret. (Well not anymore I guess). But when I ‘m sitting at work listening to these ball-less fucks tell me to do mind numbing bullshit, I know that if I wanted to I could stand up, piss on their shoes and tell them to kiss my ass in one fell swoop. And on top of it all, I believe it’s made me more of a lady.

In a grad school class we actually had to post to a blog weekly. The postings were whatever the assignment were for the week:

Pro: Hip Hop Goes Commercial by Erik Parker (Village Voice September 11-17, 2002)

In the late 1980’s I remember my journalism teacher telling me that hip-hop wouldn’t last the next five years. Well, more than 20 years after it’s inception hip-hop culture and music has woven it’s way into all parts of global living. So it’s only natural that it would be used as a commercial vehicle. Like all underground movements that gained pop culture status, hip hop is now being used to sell everything from burgers to cellular phones. If everything sang or rapped about becomes “cool” then it goes without saying that the artists should gain financially from it. This is a capitalist society and there’s no such thing as free advertising. It’s only fair that a cultural movement began by economically impoverished minorities should be able to benefit from big businesses that co-op culture for monetary gain.

Con: Hip Hop Goes Commercial by Erik Parker (Village Voice September 11-17, 2002)

Conspicuous consumption and market branding has ruined hip-hop culture and music. In the late 1980’s hip hop was about community building and the upliftment of an economically impoverished people. Even if you weren’t poor you could still benefit from the teachings of the music and the sense of community it fostered. Yet today unless you care about Motorola pagers, Courvoisier liquor, Range Rovers, platinum, diamonds, and any number of brand name foolishness, then hip hop isn’t for you. Everything is to further individual materialistic desires usually by means detrimental to the human community as a whole. Hip hop has spread it’s materialistic message across the globe. It’s an infection that’s only getting worse when Snapple bottles start breakdancing.

I was born in DC. I went to Howard. I spent my summers in DC. I remember when my cousins and step-brothers and sisters got summer jobs because Marion Berry had created a wonderful work program for the little black girls and boys in the city. As a child, raised in segragated Chicago and in love with Harold Washington, having a black mayor was really important to me. I loved Marion Berry because being the mayor of DC was tough. There were tons of politics. Particularly in the Reagan years… but, Marion… you gotta pay your taxes. You can’t do cocaine. YOU can’t do cocaine. And I’ve also heard some more disturbing news about MJ today… but we’ll save that for later.

MARION BARRY TESTED POSITIVE FOR
COCAINE: Mandatory drug test last fall
came up dirty.

*Former Washington D.C. mayor Marion
Barry now faces an increased risk of serving
the maximum 18 months in jail for misdemeanor
tax charges after testing positive for cocaine
use during a mandatory drug test administered
last fall.
Barry, who was elected to the Ward 8
council seat in 2004, has since begun treatment
for drug use, sources tell the Washington Post,
but his dirty drug test violates the terms of his
release in the tax case. Instead of probation, the
politician now faces and 18-month bid during his
sentencing scheduled for Feb. 8.
Barry, interviewed Tuesday night in his Howard
University Hospital room, where he’s being treated
for hypertension, said he did not deny accounts
of his drug test and treatment but declined to
discuss his case.
“Write what you want to write,” he told a
Washington Post reporter. “That’s my official
quote. No more, no less.”
The tax case involves Barry’s failure to pay
most of his federal and D.C. income taxes for six
years after his fourth term as mayor ended in
January 1999. Prosecutors said he received more
than $530,000 in income over the next six years
but did not document most of it. Barry’s plea
agreement also calls for him to make
arrangements to resolve his tax debts.
Barry grabbed national headlines last week
after two young men who helped him carry groceries
to his Southeast apartment returned to rob him at
gunpoint. The suspects, who escaped with Barry’s
wallet containing more than $200 in cash, his driver’s
license and two credit cards, are still at large.
In 1990, during Barry’s third term as mayor, he
was videotaped smoking crack at the Vista Hotel
by federal agents.

“I’ve Known Rivers: The MoAD African Diaspora Stories Project” is up and running.

My poem “Poor People” can be seen here: http://www.iveknownrivers.org/stories/adaptation.htm.

Here’s a little background on the project from the website:

SAN FRANCISCO (September 12, 2005) – In Africa it is said that when a griot, or oral historian, dies, “a library has burned to the ground.” In recognition of the fabled tradition of the griot and in an effort to document stories of the African Diaspora, San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) has embarked on a landmark project.

I’ve Known Rivers: The MoAD Story Project is an unprecedented effort by an international museum to collect, publish, and archive “first voice” narratives about people of African descent. In light of the recent devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and its effect on the lives of thousands of African Americans, this project’s story-collecting mission takes on an even greater significance.

An international museum based in San Francisco, California USA, MoAD is scheduled to open in December 2005 and is poised to become one of the world’s pre-eminent cultural institutions. Unlike anything ever offered by a modern museum, I’ve Known Rivers: The MoAD Story Project will be similar in vision to the historic WPA Federal Writers’ Project (1936 -1940), which archived thousands of items, including essays, oral testimony, folklore, and authentic narratives of ex-slaves about life during slavery.

“We are excited about people everywhere sharing inspiring stories which explore our African roots,” said Emmy award winning journalist and MoAD Board President, Belva Davis. “These stories will create an international conversation about what it means for us as a global community to be connected to Africa.” International Call for Stories

MoAD has issued a global Call for Stories in an effort to collect, publish and archive authentic stories from throughout the African Diaspora. Stories should be submitted in the form of first-person essay, short fiction, and poem by published and unpublished writers as well as authentic voices from across the African Diaspora. Additionally, the stories must be related to MoAD’s four founding themes: origin, movement, adaptation, and transformation.

In partnership with User Logic and funded by the ATT Excelerator Grant, MoAD will begin publishing these selected stories on the museum web site starting Fall 2005 and continue leading up to MoAD’s grand opening in December 2005.

The most highly distinguished twenty-five stories from the entries submitted will be published online and considered for an inaugural hard cover book for the museum.

After the opening, the project will continue to collect and archive stories, creating one of the first international virtual archives of African Diaspora Stories by a modern museum. In addition, the I’ve Known Rivers: The MoAD Stories Project web site will serve as an online writer’s lab, providing the newest applications in instructional media to assist those in the general public to write their own African Diaspora stories.

It’s a great way to start the new year.

There will be more exciting times to come.

Sure it’s late- but I get to do whatever I want here. I was sitting around watching TV while trying not to play Monopoly on games.com (completely addictive and I’m trying to get everybody hooked. There’s a movie like that… it’ll come to me.) So I sat with my notebook next to me and wrote what my limited attention span could muster. Now I share it with you:

The closer we get to Christmas, the shittier the gifts get. I mean a jar opener? Really? Do people consume the bulk of their nourishment from jarred foods? How many olives can you eat? A jar, can , bottle opener. Who needs this? Are we really this lazy?

Law & Order was really good when it came out. Razor sharp writing, exquisite timing, compelling characters on every side. Smart. Development of characters on all sides.

Okay. I said there was a dirth of mental activity on my part. I’ve been busy. Law & Order, the original and SVU, had marathons over the holidays; I was partying with my friends; Monopoly. Come on. That’s a ton.

I’m working on a story that I have to finish this week… I’ll see how that goes and share.

I know it’s been a minute- but HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
I’ve been busy getting myself into trouble and avoiding my work like the plague. I’ve been writing, only not posting and that, my friends, is ending now.
It’s a new year and a new perspective on life. (BTW, anyone who wants to hire me for American dollars-or euros- give me a shout.)

So I’m now trying (again) to change my layout, but it appears that my master’s degree hasn’t prepared me for code harder than Chinese algebra.

Alas, I will share some of my newest thoughts, ideas, rants, stories and such within the coming week.

Oh, and I’m trying out the google ad business too…. but right now it appears that my open letter to MJ and the frequent references to Dubai have steered the ads in an interesting direction.