Blacksmythe

I hit the road for Detroit at 7pm on Thursday. Not knowing whether I could make the trip solo (i.e. without another adult driving) I sent a shout out to both Twitter and Facebook, looking for virtual road dogs.

I read someone twitter “MJ RIP.”

I knew he wasn’t talking about Jordan, not even Johnson. And I refused to believe. Went to NYT.com and even though they hadn’t reported it yet…they had reported that he went into cardiac arrest. Before I left for Detroit it was confirmed.

Stopped by the gas station to get gas. A black brother about my age was pumping gas. Asked if he’d heard. Of course he had. His mother called him.

It wasn’t until today that it really caught up with me. I was listening to a two-hour Michael Jackson house mix on handzonradio…and at the end they just played a few tracks. When “I’ll Be There” came on I lost it. Cried like a baby. Over the past several years it was clear that Jackson had become something else, something ethereal, something ghost like. Someone–maybe Nelson George?–said that by the end Jackson looked more animé than he did human. One of my white friends noticed that most of us skirted around the child molestation charges. And yet someone else noted that he was probably worth more dead than alive, given the new interest in his past work.

They are all correct. And they all–well, probably not George–miss the point.

Michael Jackson was a harbinger. He more than any other figure foretold the future even as he burned himself into our past. He foretold the rise of the music video. Foretold the erasure of “white” pop music charts. Foretold the rise of body modification (this one is coming, isn’t quite here yet). As far as I’m concerned there is him, Prince, and everyone else. Losing him is like losing the soundtrack for the post-civil rights years of the 20th Century. I thought he’d live a day short of forever.

A dear friend asked me if I was going to write something. I told her that I didn’t have the words. That tears would have to suffice.

That sounds about right.

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Living Art, originally uploaded by Unbowed.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer bit the dust today to be reborn as an online only edition. The San Francisco Chronicle is losing $1 million/week and if it dies I believe that Sanfran will be the only major city without a major newspaper.

(as an aside i think the loss of the Seattle Supersonics was covered more than the loss of the Post-Intelligencer.)

The advertising based model of providing content is dying on the vine. Today’s NYT runs a story about the dearth of blacks on television, using the cancellation of both wack DL Hughley’s and my man (Go Blue!) David Alan Grier’s shows to ruminate about the challenge of having a diverse lineup on television. But who wants to diversify a burning house? Television shows are based off of ad revenue. Again, a dying model. I noted yesterday that there’s no way in hell that you can use 10,000 bic lighters to replace the lights of a baseball stadium.

It looks like those lights ARE going out though.

For those in the creative narrative game this is going to provide a tremendous opening. Ed has it partially right. Augie has part of the picture too. But creating cultural democracy means nothing if there are no institutions powerful enough to keep government institutions in check through shining a halogen light on their insides.

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I got this from Grace Boggs. Worth reading, posting, and re-posting:

…..

Our Time is Not the 1930s
By Grace Lee Boggs
Michigan Citizen, Nov. 30- Dec 6, 2008

Two weeks ago in my first post- election column, I wrote that I will not
be among those organizing or participating in protest demonstrations
against Obama’s actions or inactions, trying to hold his feet to the
fire. Neither will I wear a hair shirt, regretting that I voted for Obama
instead of Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney whose policies are more in
line with mine.

That is because my support for Obama was never based on his policies or
promises which, with few exceptions, are not that different from those of
other Democrats. From the outset my eyes were on the people at his
rallies, especially the youth who, inspired by his persona and his
eloquence, shed the fears instilled by the Nixons, Reagans and Bushes
since the 60s and, imbued with a new hope, began organizing on his
behalf.

For me, not just Obama’s victory but that transformation of “we the
people” from Fear to Hope, from passivity to activity, from looking on as
spectators to participating as citizens was what was so historic about
this period.

As I wrote last week, “Every time Barack insisted that it was not about
him but about us, we were reminded of our potential for becoming a better
people and a better country. When he talked about change we can believe
in, and we shouted back “Yes we can,” we were discovering the room for
growth in ourselves.”

Now that the campaign is over, let’s not turn all our attention to the
Oval Office, constantly comparing Obama and his actions or inactions with
FDR and the New Deal, refusing to face the reality that our time is not
the 30s. and forgetting the millions who were transformed during the
campaign and who need to continue this process of transformation into
active citizens if we are to save our planet and ourselves,

Tremendous changes have taken place in the world and in “we the people”
in the eight decades since the 1930s.

In the 30s our humanity had not been damaged by our dropping the bomb on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and by our jeopardizing not only ourselves but the
whole planet by using up 25% of the world’s resources even though we are
only 5% of the world’s population. .

In the 30s our manufacturing structure was still intact, the working
class was growing in numbers, and defying the economic royalists by
singing ” Solidarity Forever.” Hi-Tech had not made the majority of
industrial workers obsolete. Transnational corporations, cheap oil and
globalization had not normalized the export of jobs.

In the 30s we never dreamed of an interstate highway system, two car
garages, the military-industrial complex, the cold war which we thought
gave us the right to kill millions in southeast Asia,
de-industrialization, and today’s speculative casino economy.

As Abraham Lincoln said 140 years ago in December 1862 : “The dogmas of
the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is
piled high with difficulty , and we must rise with the occasion. As our
case is new, so must we think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall
ourselves, and thus we will save our country.

To disenthrall ourselves

    We need to look in the mirror and recognize how our racism,
materialism and militarism have brought our country and our planet to our
present condition where even the poorest Americans have more “goods” than
yesterday’s kings and queens. Yet, rich, middle class or poor, “we the
people” have not found happiness.

    Instead of throwing billions at the economy in order to get our
financial system working again, we need to take steps, however small to
begin with, towards creating a local sustainable economy that enables us
to work, eat, and take care of our families, bring the neighbor back into
the ‘hood. and slow down global warming. Together we can create a local
food system, local health clinics, local safety and security committees
and happiness.

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The Emmy’s were on a couple of nights ago. I made a decision to boycott (yeah, like I watch it anyway) once I found out that in its last year the Wire only received one nomination. One of Ta-Nehisi’s readers thinks that the reason is because white viewers couldn’t sympathize with black characters. I do think this had something to do with it, but in the end I think it’s much simpler than that.

I don’t believe that those responsible for making the nominations felt that the show was well directed or “well acted” for one simple reason–they didn’t think anyone was acting. They felt that actors like Michael K. Williams (Omar) or Jamie Hector were those characters. They didn’t have to do any work to bring them to life because that’s who they are. And David Simon didn’t have to do much work bringing city life to the screen because his stories were pretty much “ripped from the headlines.”

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Hey, I’ve a question. Over the last 40 years, how many times have African Americans played or become the President in popular media (movies, television shows, comedy skits, comic books, literature)?

Dennis Haybert (24)

Tiny Lister (The Fifth Element)

James Earl Jones (The Man)

Morgan Freeman (Deep Impact)

Neal Stephenson wrote a book under the pseudonum of Stephen Bury in which a black woman ended up being elected President.

Others?

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George Carlin dies at 71. I asked whether there was a difference in educating workers vs. citizens. Carlin’s a bit heavy handed here but he’s answering the question.

The first time I recognized his genius?

“I’m going to say a sentence that has never been uttered in the history of the universe. Watch me stick this red hot poker up my ass.“ 

There are comedians as funny as Carlin, Bruce, and Pryor still around. But the type of critical weight they brought to their craft? I’m not so sure there are replacements. He will be missed. 

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After a bit of a hiatus I was back on the barbershop doing the thing. Among the topics of discussion were Obama’s speech, Kilpatrick’s chances in Detroit, and the LeBron James Vogue cover with Gisele.

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By now this commercial is old school….but it really captures a sense of magic that I’ve been longing for. 

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