"She said that the pro-black was goin out of style..."

I forgot I used to wear headwraps (or gėlės like Cleopatra Jones and other purists say) but there I stand at 10 Lok Wo Sha Lane with my fellow temporary expats. I feel exceptionally American abroad but not so much that I would ever pledge allegiance to the flag, hence the black fist.

Coming to America is on ("Hello Babar"). This is my 13 thousandth viewing and its still good as hell. I'm thinking of having a "Black Awareness Rally" at the crib. If all goes as planned I will be cooking negro staples: a mac'n'cheese that will knock Ms. Patti's off the yellow brick road (i am by no means encouraging dairy consumption: it is toxic), fluffly cornbread muffins, a sweet potato puree adopted from Gotham Bar & Grill's delectable honey-infused version, barbeque tofu and greens but dammit I need a good vegetarian greens recipe. I'll be exclusively tuned in to Turn Up the Heat with G. Garvin for this purpose but I'm soliciting vegetarian greens recipes in the comments.

But that's old news. It's urgent that you see Confederate States of America. It's playing at the IFC center in the village.

"Most Don't Believe in the Magician"

Rob Brezny says:

Welcome to your crash course at Happiness School, Gemini. To begin your first lesson, say the following aloud: "In the next 20 days, I will rigorously test the hypothesis that it's possible for me to become far more skilled at creating happiness for myself. During that time, I will do everything within my power to make myself feel good." Now take a piece of paper and write a list of ten familiar experiences that you really enjoy and ten untried experiences that would fill you with well-being if you summoned the courage and initiative to actually attempt them. Finally, Gemini, do at least one of those 20 experiences every day for the next 20 days.

Court's been taking a risk a month and it's working for her. I'd like my whole life to be a risk and infinitely increase my reward but baby steps. Or not. I think that constraint, that conservative guideline-baby steps-came to me in a movie, Three Men & A Baby, perhaps? Maybe it's time to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If I despise anything its cliché but thwarting it's a challenge. I'm f@cking swimming in it (obviously) but my butterfly stroke's pretty decent. Actually, it's my only stroke despite a pre-adolescent year of swimming lessons with my Dad and the patient staff at Shoreline pool. That failure never quite hit, buffered by my inherent buoyancy (I can float good). I won't ever drown which would explain why peril, self-imposed or not, so appeals to me. The water rises, tumults, and I float, intermittently tredding water just to mix things up, then crown myself with thorns, lick the beaded blood, humming "All Hail the Power" all the way through. It deceives the wide-eyed self. It deludes. But I'm lucid.

"Prevail across the editors of the world!"*

Lady Tigra and Bunny D. (They like the boom.)

I like the cars--the cars that go boom--and select people, places and things. I'd characterize my tastes as discriminating esp. when it comes to people which isn't to say I don't have a tendency to consort with shade sheisters it just means that I know better. And what I know for sure, what I know that I know that I know is that these three are extraordinary.

~"CultureCulture: Conversations in Cultural Criticism" by Danielle "cinematographer/style maven/critic" Jackson

~Master teacher, skilled vocalist, and exceptional spirit Dr. Kyra Gaunt's phenomenal new book The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double Dutch to Hip-hop.

~"Remote Couture: The New 'Face' of Contemporary Television" an incisive new PopMatters column by unassuming genius, Courtney Young. And I will take this time to wish the Lafayette-bred star a supercalifragilisticespialadocious birthday. Thank you for being a friend!

* From "To Black Women", Gwendolyn Brooks, To The Diaspora

"...all the lights that light the way..."

The Wonder Woman
(A New Dream--for Stevie Wonder)

dreams have a way
of tossing and turning themselves
around and the times
make requirements that we dream
real dreams for example
i wanted to be
a sweet inspiration in my dreams
of my people but the times
require that i give
myself willingly and become
a wonder woman

Nikki Giovanni, In My House, 1972

Much More

the opposite of "microwave popcorn ass"* disposable hip hop. i can chart the past decade of my life to his creativity. "much more" had me at the jeffrey osborne(LTD) sample: i damn near wore out the vinyl in '03. it was but one of many dilla orchestrations to open up my fucking chest. funny, i never cared for his lyricism or lack thereof but still couldn't turn the music off. that's how compelling it was. "fall in love" and "two can win" make me genuinely euphoric, "stakes is high" rouses my 15 year old radical self, "stressed out" transports me to my darkest days in boarding school, "reminisce" is, quite simply, my shit, and "last donut" brings tears to my eyes. God bless.

And the starz are out tonight...

*paraphrased primo from the opening ad lib to "mm"

From Theory To Practice

That's Don P. in the shades. You'll have to excuse me; I don't know the other cretin's names.

Trillville Member Don P. Charged With Rape.

With every passing hour, baneful beat, lethal lyric I consider renouncing this sh*t and moving on with my life. Given the conflation of blackness, youth, reality, identity, breathe, eyes, memory with the business of hip hop it won't be that easy.

Real People of Ignorance

BBB Junior & Senior

Whitney Houston's husband, R&B crooner Bobby Brown, has enough troubles, but he should check out what his kids are up to on the Internet.

He might need a tranquilizer after reading the myspace.com profile of his 16-year-old daughter, LaPrincia - whose mom is Brown's ex-girlfriend Kim Ward.

The teen, who lists her favorite alcoholic beverage as Smirnoff raspberry vodka, entertains a battery of off-color questions:

"Would you ever be an exotic dancer?"

"Ohh yess," LaPrincia answers.

"Have you ever danced like a whore?" "Yess all the time."

More innocently, she also confesses to streaking, kissing a girl and skinny-dipping.

Fourteen-year-old Bobby Jr. - also Ward's child - boasts on his myspace.com profile: "i can read but i choose not to."

Twelve-year-old Bobbi Kristina, Bobby's daughter with Whitney, used the toe-curling screen name "nimpho babby," and wrote: "i love swimmin with hot guys lol (memories), i love makingout, i love cheerleading, i love driving, and last but not least i love BOYS, BOYS, BOYS!!!!!!!!" Her profile was removed recently after bloggers outed her celebrity parentage.

Meanwhile, Sean Combs' 11-year-old son, Justin (screen name: "microdiddy") lists his favorite rapper. It's not his dad, but 50 Cent. He reveals that he likes "sports, girls, football, girls, football, and girls." Pastimes? "i like to chill wit my peeps.....chill wit my fam."

Justin's big brother Quincy, 14, lists "Napoleon Dynamite" as his favorite movie, but apparently isn't big on books - which are "retarted/Stupid." He isn't big on spelling, either.

Guess it doesn't matter when your income is, as both of Diddy's kiddies claim, "250,000 or higher."
From Lloyd Grove's Low Down

The prize goes to Bobby Brown, Jr., though for this prideful pronouncement:

"i can read but i choose not to."

To be fair BBB Jr. is no worse than the so-styled new and refined JayHova whose pronouncement in RS, that the reason he hasn't read any of the James Joyce novels famed architect Frank Gehry sent him is because he doesn't read fiction (edit: initially mispoke/wrote non-fiction. jigga knows the difference). Talk about a transparent attempt to cloak willful, hip hop endemic (although not exclusive) ignorance as idiosynchratic (and always authentic) artistry. LeVar Burton, wherever you are, we need you.

Hov pic via C&D

"There's an incredible feeling of emptiness and missed opportunity,"
Paul Allen, Chairman, Seattle Seahawks

Lofa Tatupu, right, takes a moment on the bench after the Seahawks' loss Sunday.

Before the game began I stared at the TV screen, astounded, and listened to the most energetically inappropriate pre-game anthem* known to humankind and knew that the Seahawks were going to lose, hence, I spent the game's entirety gulping Riesling and talking sh*t with my uptown crew. Next time, fellas, chose something glorious and triumphant. I'd take a trophy over tremens any day.

*Apparently this is the pre-game anthem regularly blared at Qwest Field.

Negrophobia

Before the Battle (Chickin' Dumplin'), Kara Walker, 1995

"One of the things I find interesting about exoticism in the context of interracial sexual liaisons is that it is a kind of racism by mutual consent. Each party projects fantasies onto the other. If there is a solid basis to the attraction and a relationship is formed, the fantasy stage is transcended and one finds oneself dealing with the funky humanness of the other. Exotic differences are of no importance because one is dealing with the hard realities of another human being. Some people, of course, fetishize the idea of exoticism...

Curiously, just like the stereotypes some like to believe about themselves attraction based on exoticism also occurs among exotics. For example, the fetishizing of black women as the Queen Mums of Africa within romantic black cultural nationalist thought. Or, like the East Indian and Bavarian German woman with whom I had an affair some years back, who complained about how she was being treated like an exotic by all the white boys she had been involved with. Yet, at the same time, as she had never been involved with a black man, she projected her particular fantasies onto me."

Darius James, From "A Conversation between Darius James and Kara Walker"

This is BHM Post 3. Mirrored at bone black.

Groupie Love

Pamela Des Barres will be at Coliseum Books on Saturday. The book, formerly out-of-print, was re-released this past October. You don't know how hard it was for a girl to find this book in the city of angels (scoured Westwood (the homefront), Venice and Santa Monica to no avail) in the summer of 2002. It wasn't in any specialty or used bookstores and was stolen from every bibliotheque I checked. I think it would be extra fresh if Pamela and Karinne had a public conversation or better yet a one on one in Interview. I love Pamela Des Barres! She transcends the latent shame of say a Bebe Buell or the awkward kookiness of Plaster Caster. I am so crunk-up-on it!

BHM Post 2: I Know I'm Not Sufficiently Obscure

A people's history...

...could never be condensed into a measly month, especially not the shortest of the year, but in the face of the erosive missive against black lives and spirits it is necessary. Like Sunday worship service provides the meditation and inspiration the daily hustle precludes, black history month fka negro history week (Thanks Dr. Woodson!) is an annual affirmation for faces obscured in the well of his/herstory. Anyway, I am championing a black something/someone every day for the month of February over here at bone black. I am and always will be a 'race woman' (I see you L).

BHM Post 1: The Antisemantacist