The hermetically sealed world of Sirius 1

Hurricane Blues Pt 1

2005-09-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

By Ericka Schiche

While most people are about to place the aftermath ofthe hurricane in the recesses of their minds, I am still searching for the oldest living relative on mymother's side of the family, Loretta Perret Blanchard and her daughter, Nyra Blanchard, who previously livedon Spain Street and, most recently, Camberley Drive.I faced the brave new world of cold realities SundaySept. 4th when a family member disseminated heart-rending information: our family is dispersed across six states -- Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana,GeorgiaFlorida and Arkansas, where my cousin Franchelle waited alone in a remote part of the state with nonearby airport. Even with most of my relatives located and safe, we still are concerned about family membersJohn and Leola Lyons, who resided at 2508 Bienville St. Perhaps even worse, me and my sister had no idea a small band of family members slept on cots in theAstrodome less than 15 minutes away from our Midtown apartment. My cousins Wanda and Eva told me, bytelephone from Florida, about cousins I have in the Astrodome who have received three-month housing vouchersand are just looking for a good neighborhood and school. As a black woman, one of the worst parts of the catastrophe has been wrapping my head around all theintersecting issues of race and class. But for me, as it is for my relatives, this time when interest in the cause celebre wanes, is a time of c'est la vie.The process of salvaging and reconstructing a submerged New Orleans broken by effusive lake waters and a seemingly incessant hurricane downpour willsurely require a Sisyphean effort made more difficultby the fact each person involved has some reason to worry, reminisce or cry. Last week, the story was more about destruction prima facie."We are at a catastrophic, disastrous impasse. Thereare a tremendous amount of trees down, gas leaks, lowwater pressure, and downed electrical lines whichcould start a fire that we have no way of puttingout," stated Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard Aug. 29. And that is one of the better suburban areas in andaround New Orleans. Just west of New Orleans, the more financially secure town of Gretna governed byBroussard was accessible by residents fortunate tohave access to their homes on Labor Day. Gretna is the place where Louis Armstrong met his first wife, the same place where people fleeing the abject conditionsof the Superdome and convention center were met with drawn guns as they tried to cross a bridge to refuge.

New Orleans itself, however is uninhabitable with 80 percent of homes and properties under water as deep as 20 feet in some places. Officials, including the mayor, have enumerated healthrisks including mosquito colonies, dysentery, tetanus, malaria, typhoid, cholera and West Nile Virus outbreaks. In Houston, as of Sept.6, 200 people at the Astrodome have contracted Norovirus or Norwalk virus,which is a form of viral gastroenteritis causing vomiting, fever and myalgia. Put in perspective, there were only 232 cases of Norovirus reported to theCenters for Disease Control from July 1997 to June 2000.If Broussard was literally in the trenches, findinghimself wailing on national television about "beingsick of press conferences," Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.,took aerial views of a lone crane placing 3 to 7,000-pound gravel-filled bags on the 17th Street Canal floodwall, and issued her own statements on Sept. 3rd about an impasse reached by Louisiana state and local officials unable to convince the President or the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deviseand execute plans to assist and evacuate those leftbehind at the Superdome and the convention center. "Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would comeaway from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency," she stated. Landrieu, explaining the quagmire many flood survivors have succumbed to and many others have struggled to escape from, attributes the abject failures of the agency to utter non-responsiveness on the part of agency officials. "I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims -- far more efficiently than buses -- FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency." Perhaps in an attempt at damage control FEMA did obtain leases on three cruise ships near Galveston,Texas designed to temporarily house priority evacuees such as the elderly on what amount to floating shelters. Yet, even with this seemingly symbolic gesture, at least one ship sits idle along theMississippi River, with its capacity to produce100,000 drinkable gallons of water per day underutilized. For all the talk of logictics by government officials,the more than 20,000 evacuees directed to the Superdome and later ordered to vacate the premises then found themselves stuck outside in extreme heat and humidity for days waiting for bus rides out. Even those lucky enough to board buses found once inextricable familial ties severed by forced separations -- in many cases, fathers were separated from mothers and children who boarded buses first. Once dozens of buses arrived in Houston, evacuees were told there was no room for them in the Astrodome. Andthey were curiously greeted by Harris County JudgeRobert Eckels who told them they would be in Houstonfor at most a few weeks and condescendingly admonishedby Houston Mayor Bill White who ordered them to actlike "neighbors" and obey the law.Before the floods, the City of New Orleans was alreadyin the throes of a socioeconomic declension, and manyof the same residents unable to find jobs in a placewhose laws are predicated on the Napoleonic code foundthemselves trapped in the proverbial putrescentcesspool. About 30 to 40 percent of the city isconsidered poverty-stricken. The Census Bureau liststhe African American population of the city as 67.3percent and the white population at 28.1 percent, witha projected total 2003 population of 469,032. The 2000Census lists 213,134 housing units, of which about 53percent are rented properties. The Flood PolicyInsurance Program only has 85,000 policy holders inNew Orleans. This creates a slippery slope forrenters, many of whom may be too elderly or poor topack up and leave.I had a conversation the other day with someone aboutthe matrix of overwhelming issues sure to birth evenmore problems, including miasma-infused air, death,more unemployment and despair, and we both concludedthis could be the "end of New Orleans."My tears have flowed since Wednesday Aug. 31, thefirst day I was able to watch the local and nationalnews broadcasts. My late grandmother's elevated whitewooden house in the Sugar Hill section of the city mayor may not be flooded. The house was empty at the timeof impact, and none of the people in my immediatefamily have even mentioned the house, but certainlythe area around Music street, where many familymembers resided in the 1920s, is washed out and ruinedforever. This was a rare Southern city of truehospitality with some semblance of an old-fashionedneighborhood mentality still intact. Some people whoonce lived on Sere street, where our family house issituated, have moved on or passed away, yet some stillremain. Or at least they remained until the time ofimpact.Living literally next door to New Orleans, in Houston,Texas, it is hard to fight the urge to get a bus andfind a place where my entire family can be centrallylocated or spend most of my paycheck after rent ispaid to purchase necessities for evacuees. One lady atmy church, named Debra, caught a cab from New Orleansto Houston on the Sunday just before the hurricanelanded. She cried for almost an hour, and seeing hermade me cry too. The French-influenced antebellumedifices of the French Quarter and two-story mansionsof the Garden District may have emerged largelyunscathed, but the more poverty stricken areas likethe 9th Ward where Antoine "Fats" Domino resided areliterally in the toilet. Many of the homes on theoutskirts of the business district are one or twostory white wooden shotgun houses.Architect Le Corbusier once considered the house amachine for living. There is no such thing as livingin New Orleans anymore, with its hurting, scatteredpopulace. If there is such a metaphorical machine inNew Orleans it is probably in a permanent state ofmalfunction at best. If an orgone did exist in thecity, that force now exists only in the HoratioAlgeresque survival stories, which have been reducedto disaster cliches in some cases and true technicolormiracles in others.Reports of gunfire, looting, rapes, murder, bedlam andchaos, at times sensationalistic, have unfortunatelyfueled a perception of those who were still waiting ona ride out of the city late last week as dangerous andundeserving. One lady with disheveled hair, presumablywearing the same clothes for the last four days,screamed she was stuck in a "living hell." People inNew Orleans will never have to worry about coffinswashing up on sand-strewn streets like the ones inGulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi did becausecemeteries like St Louis No. III, where my grangmotheris buried, are above-ground. But I struggle with thethought of how many people lost the photos that tellthe history of their family and how many people lostjobs. My family includes the Bynums, Perrets,Darensbourgs, and others. Part of the roots from myfamily tree consist of Swiss watch-makers who livedand worked in the French Quarter during the 18th and19th Centuries. Watching reports of dead bodiescovered by the ubiquitous white sheet and people whoare running on empty crying and shouting for helplanguish in the streets makes me angry enough to losemy mind when someone passes judgment on those who wereleft behind.I had to restrain myself when a woman said the peoplenear the convention center are "just waiting for agovernment handout." The subject of catastrophicmisfortune was broached when I mentioned the GrestDepression and how the infrastructure of federalgovernment was reconstituted by Roosevelt to handlethe weight and scope of the problems, and she couldonly respond by saying it was a political event. Evenjuxtaposing the angry words of Mayor C. Ray Nagin andthe unctuousity of apologies uttered by the Presidentabout late-coming rescue efforts he labeled"unacceptable," the floods transcend the idea of apolitical event.Looking at dead bodies floating face-down in murkybrown waters raises the question of what happens tothe funeral homes and morgue, which has since beenrelocated to an area just outside Baton Rouge,Louisiana. What about the people, many of whom may nothave financial resources to evacuate, still trapped inthe attics of their homes? This has become a legacy ofdeath, with at least three suicides and possibly up tothousands of deaths. In one nursing home alone, one of30 FEMA claims to have evacuated, there were 31deaths.The beachfront of Biloxi, Mississippi was obliterated36 years ago by Hurricane Camille on August 17-18,1969, and now again. Less than a year ago myself andfamily drove through the balmy air of the town, whichstill has an unsettling affinity for all thingsConfederate. It is difficult to reconcile the idea ofstate-sanctioned racism with the now-effaced beauty ofthe area. Yet, as a black woman traveling then throughPass Christian, Gulfport, Biloxi and Ocean Springs,Mississippi, I was able to put negative thoughts ofthe area aside to play volleyball with a white familyon the Biloxi Beachfront. The only tangible remindersI have of that time are a sand dollar and a bluedolphin figurine with an orange, blue and green hulaskirt and yellow flower on its head. My motherpurchased it for me while at a shop called Sharkheads,which may no longer exist. Even with the strange mixof emotions I have had for the area, now the mainthoughts I have for people in the area are ofcompassion and sadness.I also think of the musicians of New Orleans. Thirteenyears ago trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis conversed withme about his jazz family, which also includes youngerbrother Jason and older brothers Wynton and Branford.The two younger brothers stayed behind while the olderones left to further develop their careers. Like Seventh Ward resident Jelly Roll Morton, Central Cityresident Kid Ory, Sixth Ward resident Sidney Bechetand Louis Armstrong, who left New Orleans before andduring the Great Migration, the older brothers decidedto spread the jazz gospel to the uninitiated. Whilethe Marsalis family is said to be still intact andevacuated, I wonder often about the Second Line jazzmusicians who continued a rich history with theirblack suits and umbrellas. Or the young drummers whohone their chops by turning plastic buckets upsidedown in the French Quarter. In their book BourbonStreet Black: The New Orleans Black Jazzman, JackBuerkle and Danny Barker sought to capture apost-Storyville portrait of the New Orleans jazzplayer without the requisite stereotypes. In thefictive world, New Orleans is a place of malaise andennui so labeled by Walker Percy in the Moviegoer andin Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Sure, I have memories of the place. Of going to Cafedu Monde and drinking cafe au lait with the tiniestbit of sugar, eating po-boys from We Never Close,reading the Times Picayune newspaper, or of the time aman let his monkey loose so it could hug me very tightas if I were a tree near the French Quarter. Other family members memories are even greater becauseit is the place of their birth and much of their life.The Gypsy Tea Room, a demolished yet legendary jazzhaunt on the same level as the Dew Drop Inn, was aplace frequented by my great grandmother. On April25th many years ago, she and her friends attended theLadies of Joy Summer Dance. Back then, the ladies woresatin ribbons on their lapels, flowers in their hairlike Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith and red orrose-tinted lipstick. The gentlemen, dressed in suitsand ties escorted them to the dancefloor to themellifluous sounds of the Desvignes Orchestra. Thephoto capturing this long lost weekend scene wasdeveloped by the now defunct Bucksell shop on PaugerStreet. It was a way of life no one practices anymore,anywhere.Now I think of the residence at 616 N. Derbigny St.,where my mother had her first Christmas in 1950, andwonder of the whereabouts of its inhabitants, who mayhave been unable to save their photos.Perhaps the only photos many displaced New Orleansresidents are interested in are images of cells makingup a digital grid created by the National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration's Remote Sensing Division.Each photo posted on the website shows where the floodwaters have or have not receded.And each photo documents the personal hell endured bythose who may be unable to carry their city uphill asSisyphus did his stone, only to find it rolling backdownhill.As tears fall less frequently, and my thoughts are nowconsumed with the hope my cousin Loretta will be foundalive, I find the current state of New Orleans isalmost too painful to cry about.

Update: My cousin Leola Lyons' body was removed from her residence Sept. 20 by Kenyon workers. The blue house she lived in was marked as checked, even though it had never been checked prior to Sept. 20. Her brother notified authorities he was in the process of looking for her, and that is the only reason she and her husband John were discovered. As of now, only 20 percent of New Orleans is under flood waters, but the number may fluctuate due to recent flooding caused by Hurricane Rita. Our family is the process of making funeral arrangements for cousin Leola, and the original article was written Sept. 7.

The Fog

2005-01-02T10:15:00.001-08:00

I've had this intense, palpable, nervous feeling since the morning. It's hard to laugh or lose yourself in convivial fun when you have seen footage of dead bodies juxtaposed with dead bodies in the wake of the tsunami. The waves that crashed through the nations affected were not the highest ever recorded, but those waves made a sadness rain on me. For that reason I think, honestly, New Year's was a bit more subdued for me. Which is not to say I had no fun. Recent world events such as what is going on in Iraq make it more difficult to get lost in the distortion of a holiday. Life goes on, though. It has to. To top it all off, the city has been suspended in a deep fog since New Year's Eve night. Fog to me represents ambiguity, lack of clarity. When you live in a city already enveloped in the artificial haze of smog, a fog just compounds it all. Now it feels like a trap. When I was in Austin over the holidays, it was totally different. Austin has the best, mildest weather and bluest skies of any city I've been to. It is Texas Hill country full of trees and untouched landscapes. The down side is I have to ask, "but where are the black people?" Anyway I have this strange nervous feeling and it isn't like butterflies. Maybe it is because I know the world is not getting any better. We each have to make our miniscule, tiny piece of the world better. Hope you and yours have a prosperous and productive New Year.

The Fourth Eye

2004-12-27T01:31:00.000-08:00

I recently obtained a digital camera. My favorite modus operandi has always been the visual equivalent of analog, or the film-based camera. This idea has since been tossed out of the window. Yes, actually developing one's own film is an invaluable process exclusively digital camera users miss out on. Without the more drawn out process of developing film and manual printing, there are no lessons on calibration, subtractive and artificial light, chemistry or patience. Still, having been through both processes, I can appreciate the utter simplicity and instantaneous nature of digital photography. Cartier Bresson valued the decisive moment just as Edgerton valued the crucial moment--such as the time when a droplet is manifest in the realm of visual iconography. One photographer who understands the power of an image is Thierry Le Goues. One of his books, Popular, is a breath-taking document of life in countries south of the United States. He took a beautiful picture of an automobile in the midst of light rain. In another photo he plays with the idea of reflexivity and projection by capturing a few people in front of a mirror. The images facing the people looking into the mirror are various portraits of Che Guevara. I'm still wating for Le Goues to do music videos. I once interviewed Andres Serrano, someone many in the art community have considered a lover of shock. His work seems to have gotten lost over the years because, well, regular television sans cable has become just as risque, sensationalist and obscene (by any definition) as many of those books and images we have been trained to avoid. I decided to start making short films and documenting as much of what I see as I can. Writing is a useful tool, but sometimes diaristic writing loses its edge and my emotions can best be expressed in an abstract painting or a photo. Don't know where this is taking me, but hopefully this will be an area that will remain an outlet for expression.

Voulez vous couche avec moi c'est soir

2004-12-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

I am certainly not one to keep in touch with folk from high school, but there is one lady from my school named Song who has inspired me. She is doing big things in Paris, France. Though not as ostentatious or flamboyant as Josephine Baker, she seems to have fallen in love with the place. Many, many black artists and writers have made the transcontinental trek to the city of lights, and some, like the late Nina Simone, decided they really didn't want to return to the States after they moved there. Simone cited racism in the U.S. as her reason for staying in France. I haven't had the chance to talk to her about her reasons for moving, but I'm sure Song would give me an earful. Song has a powerful, what I like to call mellifluous voice because it flows like honey. She has always had that voice. There once was a place in town called The Magic Bus and she would sing there in the extremely dark and shadowy part of the club. No one would speak while she sang, which was and still is a real accomplishment for a performer. Everyone was rapt. Before she moved overseas, Song crowned herself with locs, so of course she looks more beautiful than she ever looked before. Check out this cool soul sister and member of the Rimshot Crew at Seesong.com.

More coffee, please

2004-12-14T20:38:00.000-08:00

One of the funniest films I have seen in recent memory is Coffee and Cigarettes. It's directed by Jim Jarmusch, so it has the requisite disconnected vignettes pattern of storytelling. Whereas Mystery Train and Night on Earth employed the same technique, Coffee and Cigarettes spends less time on idiosyncrasies and oddities and more on dialogue and philosophies. Like myself, Jarmusch has a strange affinity for Memphis, Tennessee (imagine Arrested Development's "Tennessee" as the mental sountrack), and with Cinque and Joie Lee he retreads over a familiar if rarely touched upon subject, which is Elvis Presley's appropriation of black singers' stylistic and lyrical identities. I just loved this movie. Especially the vignette with RZA aka Bobby Digital, GZA aka Liquid Swords and Ghost Bustin Bill Murray. Check it.

November came and went

2004-11-29T19:23:00.000-08:00

November is a monotonous drone, a tedious exercise in repetition. With the passing of Yassir Arafat the Palestinians have lost whatever sense of organization and perhaps even unity. People tend to view him as a pariah, but in his part of the world and abroad he was revered. The United States doesn't have any true, real moral authority in the world, so to be elitist now is actually irresponsible. To those who say the president doesn't have a problem with black people, why is he losing almost all of his black cabinet members? Some would say cabinet turnover is an expected occurrence with a new term, and to some extent that is true, but what about his approach to black people as a whole? See, I told you November is boring for me. The image of a Native American and a white man sitting down at a common table and sharing a feast of roasted corn and turkey is etched into our collective (non)conscience. My November was often rainy, sometimes cold and devoid of good times. On November 24th, Saul Williams was in town with his rock band. I'm quite sure tickets would have been at least 15 dollars. I only had 40 dollars, so I had to pass. It reminded of a great book I read titled The Broke Diaries by Angela Nissel. A weekly pass for the bus costs 9 dollars, and I am down to my last 11 dollars and 86 cents. After I wash one load of clothes for 1.50 and buy the pass, the amount in my wallet will be one dollar and 36 cents. I forgot to add this amount has to last me from now until Monday December 6th. Good thing there is food in the house or I would be up a serious creek with no kayak. Makes me want to read George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. Makes me want to listen to Marvin Gaye and some old Southern broke-down blues. Peace.

Whatever, man

2004-11-04T20:31:00.000-08:00

I was watching Prime Time Live one night, and a man said, "Everybody gets to have an opinion." Whatever, man. Straight from the forked tongue of Toure, that ubiquitous, harmless talking head who sings the praises of celebrity politicians like Eminem. Sure, most oil money is blood money, but Eminem is more part of the hegemonic and hierarchical paradigmatic construct than he would leave one to believe. Sure, Dr Dre proferred Marshall Mathers an instant ghetto pass, but the "relationship" forged (or forced, as it were) between Eminem and the black community is tenuous at best. In a way, it depends almost solely on how inextricably linked Eminem appears to be with dre and, to a lesser extent, D12. Eminem's latest video is about as risque as anything on Adult Swim, and its simplicity could be distilled to one theme....subvert the paradigm for an anarchic Utopia. But what exactly is being subverted and does the identity of the speaker undermine the message. As Marshall McLuhan once posited, the medium is the message. Now that he has exhausted the subject of Kim Mathers and his mother and found his sarcastic facetiousness losing its bite, Eminem has now taken on the role of talking head. My mother once wrote a poem in which the narrative calls for a servo mechanism and a way out of the machine. One gets the idea Eminem is not up for divorcing himself from the white male as savior construct that got him where he is today. In the past, he offered up pop culture criticism lite that owed more to transparent wit than substantive theoretical consideration. Whereas Chuck D and Dead Prez provide listeners with a picture of miasma/object suffering at the hands of injustice. Eminem gives a very Hollywood approach to problem solving, and there are no real viable solutions in his video world. In his video he presents us with a cadre of black jacketed, hood-wearing disgruntled citizens confronting George W. Bush falls flat on the imagistic plane because it is a two-dimensional solution to a multifaceted, multilayered problematic situation. Sure, there is some merit in what he does. Freedom of expression, right? Eminem's words don't necessarily fall on deaf, indifferent ears, but those words don't exactly resonate and channel the spirit of the constructive, visceral response so integral to the 1960s. Of course, some skeptics would say, "It took a white man...." Yeah, sure, whatever. It took a white man to reconstitute, reconstruct, repackage and resell ideas and beliefs espoused for centuries by black people in the so-called New World. Eminem has skills, no doubt, but what do those skills translate into? Eminem, like every other figure who has taken up the voting cause celebre, wants people to exercise their rights. But in the age of the Patriot Act and dumb and dumber government, it takes more than just a vote to get it done. It takes many, many lifetimes of work. And that is the message too complicated for Music Television and Toure. After all, Toure calls the video great, but does he have the nerve to pick it apart? Eminem is not Noam Chomsky, and I'm sure he doesn't want to be, but he is unable to save us from ignorance, complacency and destruction. We have to have sense enough to obtain our own information and save ourselves.

Scary Times

2004-11-04T19:40:00.000-08:00

The erosion of civil liberties and continued devaluation of the dollar and economic downward spiraling should be of concern to any citizen with a vested interest in the future of this country. Throughout his first term, Bush was only lightly criticized for running a neo-Fascist, propaganda-predicated regime. Bush and the mainstream media were so inextricably linked, it was and is apparent any real information about what has transpired in the United States will not be divulged to the public. Bush has said he does not care about the decreasing value of the dollar. That can be attributed to his desire to play into the hands of (in his de facto subservient role) the Economic Union and his role as facilitator in the New World Order. He also said he no longer cares about locating Osama Bin Laden. Strange coincidence his tape was released just two days before the election, right? You can forget about civil liberties under Bush. No one has really examined the Patriot Act extensively, but, in short, expect a national identification card system complete with coding based on creditworthiness among other criteria, use of transponders, and further loss of civil rights. Bush has transferred the secrecy of the Skull and Bones society and surreptitious nature of the Illuminati to government, taking the country to a new level of endangerment. Also, microchip implantation devices and other tracking systems will be used increasingly over the next few years. Don't let the fact you have a decent paying job now mislead you into thinking the economy is either on the rebound or simply sluggish, as some pundits/polemicists have expressed. The country is already in the throes of a mild depression. Around the country the foundations of industry have given to subsidence. The oil and gas industry in Texas, the steel manufacturing core of Pennsylvania, autmotive industry in Michigan, technical industry in California and general manufacturing in Midwestern states have all taken direct, deadening blows over the past 30 years. Broken edifices of deserted factories, once the cornerstone of American economy, are reflective of the new ghost towns born in the wake of their demise. America's dollar will be devalued to the point where it is only good within the borders of the U.S. and only extremely poor nations. It would carry the same level of vacuity as Chinese or Russian money. Aside from a near complete dismantling of what was achieved with the Civil Rights Movement, civil liberties will become a distant memory. And, of course, more cameras will be watching you from all angles. Democracy never has and certainly, with Bush in office, never will exist in this country. Canada or Brazil, anyone?

Most Definitely

2004-11-04T19:16:00.000-08:00

The New Danger is referential, more dusty than digital in its analog, organic sound quality, and is infused with a palpable sense of melancholy. Perhaps more than any other artist, Mos Def uses his idiosyncrasies, theories and fixations to create sometimes labyrinthine aural meditations on superficiality, the zeitgeist, life in the streets, and mistrust. His sampling roots, planted in the musical terra firma of his earlier days in Black Star, and cultivated extensively on his debut Black on Both Sides, have grown to become more sophisticated oblique references. Even so, Mos Def is not above giving you the patently obvious. In "Sunshine," he invokes the spirit of the Fifth Dimension's "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" and he revisits Roy Ayers' "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" in "Life is Real" and "Champion Requiem," respectively. At times, Mos Def veers toward an acerbic, didactic tone, but most of the time, he overcomes that by establishing a hermetically sealed musical world in which Shuggie Otis plays blues guitar (in a minimalist way reminiscent of "Purple") on "Blue Black Jack," a tribute to boxer Jack Johnson. In this world, he also alternates between images of a sun-scorched Icarus spiraling downward and an ultra-introspective version of Dante on "Modern World." "The Panties" represents a lyrical juxtaposition of romance and lasciviousness with its metaphorical references to the stratosphere and ionosphere. He gives a tate of the Sly and the Family Stone-style rock-funk fusion on "Freaky Black Greetings," and instead of just mentioning John Lee Hooker and Jimi Hendrix as he did on his first album's "Rock and Roll," the new album is like an extended movement, a chance to tread murkier waters without the listeners' safety net of catchy hooks and choruses or familiar beats. His choice of the word gangster in "Bedstuy Parade & Funeral March" represents the most substantive use of the term since the Chicago Gangsters' "Gangster Boogie." He also plays with the idea of using tambourines, flutes and Spanish guitar to charm the ears, and on "Zimzallabim" uses elements of heavy metal, yet through all his musical mutations, though, Mos Def is still a hip hop artist who doesn't want to be pushed because he's too close to the edge. Even the album cover is designed to make one contemplate the power of an image, much in the same vein as Thelonious Monk's Underground album cover did over 30 years ago. He calls himself the Boogie Man throughout The New Danger, but the scariest part of his urban legend is that Mos def is realism incarnate, and he's just getting started.

Double Feature Pt II: Jeter might be going home early

2004-10-20T18:41:00.000-07:00

Boston Red Sox lead the New York Yankees 6-0 in the 3rd inning. Say what? That is not supposed to be happening. Well, Cairo just crossed home plate. Now the score is 6-1. I am not feeling this baseball game at all. The sad thing is I am indifferent about the Astros and their hopes of beating the Cardinals, but I expect the Yankees to be there at the very end of the season. Oh well. I put myself through university by working at baseball games, and to this day one of my favorite memories is shaking Sammy Sosa's hand. I was working at what was then Enron Field (I know, start laughing) when the Yankees came to play the Astros and although I didnt see much of the game, I did get a Yankees vs Astros baseball. Now, it seems like it might be the Cardinals versus the Red Sox. I know, that would be boring. I have too many other interests to follow baseball closely, but I miss hearing Fastball songs in the Astrodome. My favorite players are Roger Clemens, Orlando Hernandez (el Duque), David Ortiz (Papi), Carlos Beltran, Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey (for old times sake), Sammy Sosa, Jeff Bagwell and Barry Bonds. Now it is 8-1 Boston. Dayummm. That makes no sense to me.

Double Feature Pt 1: Juice

2004-10-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

One good thing about living in the abyssmal void of the South is you have myriad choices of juice to select from. At the Vietnamese restaurants you can get fresh squeezed sugarcane juice. At the Mexican taco truck you can get orchata, which is basically savory rice water with sweet spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, tamarindo, the juice of tamarinds, watermelon juice or cantaloupe juice. The best watermelon juice I ever tasted was in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and it came from a jugo stand. And of course you can taste the purple sweetness of Jamaican sorrel. The South is so twisted in every way, though, so sometimes the simple pleasures of life are hard to cherish. What comes to mind is Billie Holiday's song "Strange Fruit." Blood on the leaves, blood on the root. I have lived briefly in the North and was born and raised in the South. Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be if the inverse were true. Perhaps my view of the South would be more cynical, more narrow. Almost everyone down here says New Yorkers are rude. That's so strange to me because New Yorkers were always more hospitable and warm towards me than people in the South. When I was in New York no one talked about Southerners. I got the sense they were more preoccupied with their own environs and struggles and had little or no time to try to figure out the South. When I came back to Texas from Harlem I was very depressed. Almost as depressed as I was before leaving for New York. Black people really can't afford to be depressed. There is way too much going on. It is almost a luxury for us. The second time I went back to Manhattan in 1999, it was colder, and the only person I saw again was my dad. But I still loved being there. Since then I have thought about living in Chicago, Seattle, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Even Detroit. But since I am a writer New York would seem a more logical choice. Speaking of writing, all the black writers who had columns in Paper magazine, Artbyte and the Village Voice seem to have moved on. At least all the writers whose words I savored. Even though Veronica Webb was a model she still ranks as one of the best columnists New York ever had. Her book is out of print, but if you can get hold of old issues of Paper, you'll see what I am talking about. bell hooks also wrote for Paper for a while, and although I liked her column I tend to rate her more as a book author. Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky had a column as well, and when he left Paper he and M Singe wrote for Artbyte. There are other black writers like Greg Tate, who wrote for the Voice. Somehow all these people just disappeared from regular print. Lisa Jones, daughter of Amiri Baraka, also wrote for the Voice. Baraka is a very wise, erudite elder. If you have never read his books, start with either an anthology or his book about the blues, Blues People. There are some relatively new writers out there named Toure, Kelefa Sanneh, Lola Ogunnaike and Asha Bandele, but I would give anything to read more work from Bonz Malone. My opinion of the newer writers is that they lack style and edge. I also wish their writing was a bit more intellectual. I wish there was a magazine that had all my favorite writers in it every month. That would be impossible, though.

Hip Hop Magazines

2004-10-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

Kanye West on the cover of Scratch magazine. Sounds superfresh, right? Wrong! West got major points from me when he constructed the beats for Talib Kweli's "Just To Get By." He got major points from me when he collaborated with Dilated Peoples (even though the Peoples have yet to eclipse the effort on "Triple Optics" and "Main Event"). I like how he adjusted the pitch on Chaka Khan's mellifluous lyrics. The West train seemed to be rolling over most of the competition without much sign of a let up. He started to become hip hop hegemony, the upper echelon of beat stylists, the reigning heavyweight champion of the behind the scenes realm. Even though I don't rate him as an MC, he seemed to be gaining momentum on that front as well. West kept making very shrewd decisions, as any intelligent student of hip hop would. There seemed to be some unnecessary self-aggrandizing statements here and there. But for the most part, West kept winning the hip hop sweepstakes. I was feeling the message for "All Falls Down" and even liked the video. He even put Miri Ben-Arie, the violinist known for her work on Showtime at the Apollo, back where she should be, on center stage. But somehow, I found it difficult to believe this is the same Kanye West interviewed by Dante Carfagna. Let me first state Scratch magazine is a good magazine. Though I haven't always liked Dr Dre's work, I have respect for him and his work ethic. He really broke it down in the issue prior to the one with West on the cover. So when I saw the new issue, I was already thinking it was time for me to subscribe to this magazine. On the cover, West is even holding a stack of records, with Marvin Gaye's Let's Get it On album in the foreground. Basically, part of the blame for the poor interview rests with the interviewer. That is always the case. Ask the difficult questions that will net insightful responses. The more introspective the subject, the better. Although Carfagna is known as a funk and soul expert, he seemed ill-prepared for the interview. West, for his part, lost almost all of his points when he stated Eminem is one of his top five favorite producers. Is he serious??? Eminem is an excellent MC. He is not the savior of hip hop. He's not Elvis, either. Eminem has been known to enumerate all the hip hop gods he has either emulated, respected or learned from. But I find his production to be lacking. West basically stated he wanted to co-opt Eminem's beatmaking strategies. West also seemed to be full of himself. That's what happened to Swizz Beatz, even though he was doomed to fail. He got stuck on himself, and where is he now? West is good on the boards, no question, but is it just me or did it seem like he avoided most of the subjects you would expect a producer to delve into. I think Just Blaze is an excellent producer few people really know about. He isn't afraid to really talk about the equipment, either. To be fair, West did mention he uses an Ensoniq ASR-10 and an Akai sampler. Who hasn't? There was no info about how West went from student to master. Isn't that what makes martial arts and all other stories great? I don't think the flatness of the interview is all Carfagna's fault. Maybe West just isn't savvy enough on that level. Enough on that. I decided to wait to see if the next issue is going to have a poor cover story. One good thing about it was the editor decided to finally give Melvin Bliss props for what has to be one of the top three most sampled breakbeats of all time, "Synthetic Substitution." It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that James Brown's music would take one of the other top three spots. While we're on the subject of hip hop mags, did you see the one with Dave Chappelle and Kweli, Dead Prez and Common on the cover? Nice cover, yet another poor issue. What is with these people. But I am still in love with hip hop....
Two of my heroes are Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jimi Hendrix. Their lifestyles were a disappointment to me, but then again, those lives weren't my life, and they are gone forever. What is good to know is the idea they can never really die because their art can be discovered by posterity over and over and over again. If you want to see how Basquiat existed on the Lower East Side, check out Downtown 81. I saw this film at an art museum and the crowd was way too pretentious, but it is a good film. Saul Williams narrated it. When I taught myself to play the first few notes of "Purple Haze," that gave me a lot of hope. Two great artists, same demise. You never know. A lot of people stood to gain by their deaths, so maybe overdose should not be the last word. The one Hendrix documentary I did see was really good because it focused on some of the black women in his life. Maybe they would still be alive if they had more of the brown sugar in their lives. You just never know....
A long time ago when I worked at the student newspaper, a white boy stated, unequivocally, that Bruce Lee only appeared in one film. You can imagine my look of incredulity. Such a flagrant foul in the world of the cretinous. Only one film? Damn! Damn! Damn! I felt like Florida Evans. I could not believe that nonsense. It made me want to retell the story of how my mother took us downtown to the Majestic Metro theater to watch Bruce Lee flicks on Saturday afternoons. So, basically, he is telling me I saw the same Bruce Lee film over and over. You had to be there to hear that conversation. One of my favorite Bruce Lee films is Fists of Fury. That movie is so ghetto. There is even a bottle of Hennessey in the center of the table during one scene. The fight at the end of the film, and the score of the film get me everytime. A masterpiece. Oh by the way, if you missed the Kerry-Bush debate you missed out on a lot of laughs. Bush looked like he was nervous, hyperventilating, sleepy and totally at a loss for words. I mean literally. I thought he was going to drop his glass of water.

Peace and hair grease,

Sirius 1

From Somalia to Sudan

2004-09-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

I was standing in line with my bottle of lemonade and box of cereal at the grocery store. Just another simple quotidian experience. Then I spotted the cover of Time Magazine, which this week focuses on the tragedy of Sudan. My feeling about Time is there is no point in substantively paying attention to it unless you're reading someone else's copy because it's a magazine with no masthead. Who's editing this magazine? Who is the Baghdad bureau chief? I couldn't tell you the last time I purchased this magazine. Yet, I stared at the cover, rapt, thinking, what is the real tragedy of Sudan? When a documentary titled Lost Boys of Sudan chronicled the difficulty of making the transition from life in Sudanese villages outside Khartoum to life in Houston and Kansas City, it highlighted the real tragedy: to be an African is to be maligned, to be relegated to "other" status in the binary, to be castigated and condescended to, to be bound by strictures of image and stereotype. One Sudanese refugee spoke of how white people always assumed he would attack them simply because he has dark skin. While watching this documentary for the second time, I shed tears knowing his experiences were my experiences. It is very hard for me to avoid doing so, but I have decided to avoid convenience stores because there is no reason for anyone else to ascertain I am a threat and place me under constant surveillance just because I'm black. The Sudanese young men who tried assimilating discovered, as one put it, "there is no heaven on earth." Millions have died in Sudan for years and years, but Time would have one believe the troubles just started. Africa is just like any other continent. There are going to be internal conflicts, civil wars, strife and devastation. The approach to Africa is one that stresses laissez faire governmental leadership and a sickeningly oleaginous noblesse oblige. The reason Clinton was not able to effect policy in the region of Aidid in Somalia is the same reason Bush will not be able to make a difference in Sudan. When leaders continue to gloss over and, in most cases, ignore what happens in Africa, they send a message that the issues concerning Africans do not concern the rest of the world. The only time we get information from mainstream press is when there is genocide or famine. There are many skyscrapers and institutions in Africa but the view most people have is that it is a place filled with homes made of thatched roofs and clay walls. Sometimes, you can get information about the Congo's "blood diamonds" or corruption in Nigeria, but as usual, information is so limited you would literally already have to know what you want to read about just to be able to seek out informative sources. But does that surprise you? Dissemination and divulging of information is not a high priority in light of the Patriot Act. But has it ever been really? Yes it is tragic so many have died in Sudan. But try discerning the difference between post facto, play-by-play, superficial tragedy analysis and careful, thorough dissection of the layers that objectively tell the story of why people have died in Sudan. It's good Alek Wek, perhaps the most famous of the Sudanese, has focused a light on the refugee situation, but let not the lambency of truth be obscured by the darkness of incomplete accounts....
On a lighter note, I saw Flava Flav on the Surreal Life show and it seemed so weird. Believe it or not, he is a musical genius. About seven or eight years ago, there was a now-defunct performance space called the Mahogany Cafe on Rosedale Street. One night I was there, and Flava Flav just walked through the front door holding a white styrofoam takeout container. I could not believe it. The only time I had ever seen Public Enemy was when they performed at a Nation of Islam event. So, when I saw him walk through the door it gave me a hip hop frisson. But what do you say to someone like Flava Flav? "Man, 911 is a joke, for real!" or how about, "I like how that clock hangs from your neck!" The funny thing is, when Guru and Chuck D were at an event, I put all my standoffishness to the side and got them to sign a sheet of loose leaf paper for me. But all I could do was look at Flava Flav. And then, he surprised everyone when he went to the drums and put it down Art Blakey style. There was not a sound to be heard except the sound of the drums. Everyone was taken aback. It makes one wonder how many artists stealthily hide what some consider latent talents....
Before I finish my version of diaristic writing, I want to give advice to people searching for films to watch. Make sure you check out Federico Fellini's work. My favorite Fellini films are Nights of Cabiria and La Strada. I tried watching Otto e Mezzo, but I fell asleep on it, which doesn't necessarily mean anything because I was just tired and sleepy. I also recommend City of God and its soundtrack. If you want to see a director go from sublime to ridiculous, check out La Haine (Hate) and then rent Gothika. The denouement of the latter was too predictable for my tastes, but when you have seen a lot of great films that is understandable. One film that really changed my life was I am Cuba. My dad tells me about how great he thinks Cuba is, and I can see why. The film is not what you would expect. It is depoliticized, giving only hints of a nascent Castro regime, but it shows Cuba in the way I always wanted to see it. In its purest forms.
While I am on the subject of Cuba, it is necessary an important subject be addressed. The mojito. I have heard of bartenders trying to make mojitos with granulated sugar, lemon juice, creme de menthe and other obscene ingredients. If I ever come to your house or soiree, make sure you make a Mojito with sugar cane juice, fresh squeezed lime juice, fresh mint leaves and an ounce and a half to two ounces of light rum. Get it straight, people! If you want to see what a mojito looks like, rent Die Another Day.

Later,

Sirius 1

Random musings and thoughts

2004-09-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

Summer breeze
Makes me feel fine
Blowing like the jasmine
in my mind...
Oh, how I love that Seals and Croft song. I like the more subdued Type O Negative remake of the song, the Isley Brothers version (still not able to get over Ernie Isley's guitar solo), and, of course, the original. I even like the current remix, which features an updated percussive element. The lyrics of this song have been in my head all day long....
One morning a radio station played "The Show" by Doug E Fresh and MC Ricky D (Slick Rick). It was raw, organic, and, well, superfresh! Most people who state they have issues with hip hop have issues with themselves. These are issues they have failed to sort out. Mos Def and Erykah Badu have both articulated very well reasoned contentions on that particular resolution. When I heard "The Show" and really focused on the beatboxing and wordsmithing, it reminded me of why I love hip hop. My resolution is that hip hop is a reflexive idiom that still chronicles the zeitgeist....
Another intriguing subject always worthy of discourse is architecture. Not enough people study it, but if you actually think about it, architecture has the transformative power to change, alter or inform one's world view. Le Corbusier once stated, "The house is a machine for living." Those are seven words I could write a whole book about. An Israeli architect, Moshe Safdie, constructed The Habitat in Montreal. His machine, to borrow a phrase from Le Corbusier, was basically an ephemeral experiment in compartmentalized communal living. I still have yet to see an apartment complex that rivals Safdie's vision of modular configurations stacked like legos. When I traveled to Chicago three years ago, partially to view the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, I was struck by how different the architecture in Chicago is from what I saw in Memphis and New York City. Chicago, curiously, felt like home, even though it is a tough city to crack. Luckily, it wasn't cold when I was there, but I did experience the fog Robert Frost wrote about and could not believe how thick it was. Antonio Gaudi is another architect whose work is to be appreciated. The only problem is you have to travel to Spain to see it. Another architect who has an interesting vision is Santiago Calatrava. Everyone is just now jumping on the Calatrava bandwagon since the Olympics, but his work, especially the bridges he has designed, has been a hot property for years. Calatrava's work is futuristic but also minimalist. When you consider what your living space looks like from outside in, and how it functions in your life and vice versa, you begin to appreciate how architecture works. Because of architecture I've learned to appreciate uninterrupted, inviolate, seemingly impervious environments much more. Vast expanses of green are much better than vast expanses of structures....
Two albums getting a lot of play on my soundsystem are The Daktaris Soul Explosion and Inspiration Information by Shuggie Otis. One day I will make a film and the soundtrack will have sounds that will blow you away....
Before I conclude this entry, I'd like to share a few words written at work:

Someone exhaled one last time today
nothing profound to say
in my mind as I traversed a desert trail of tears
it felt like my name was Hassoun
dust in my eyes
untangling complicated fabrications
sold by the machine

Technosubjugation has me confined
in what was once an orgone box
one that mutated into a titanium hypercube

My first heart, Hallowed,
serves in the 101st Airborne Division
somewhere in the miasma of senseless bloodshed
in oil-stained Iraq

No one feels that pain.
You see, we're not together.
So, there's no point in tying
a yellow ribbon around an oak tree
Still, my heart remembers the time
he sang "Inside Out"
and laughed when he saw the
brotherman cowboy riding
a horse down the sidewalk
outside Spanish Village

Hallowed could exhale for the
last time tonight,
with no one there to say
I love you

Remember when we sat
in the dark at the Pyramid,
candle flame flickering,
sweet incense insinuating itself
into the cold air?

Remember those black Djarum
cigarettes I sent you? And the time
you sent me oils labeled frankincense,
myrrh, Kush and Jamaican fruit?

Remember? Remember? Can you
hear me? How my heart cries for you
late at night?
Make it back from Iraq.

It might not be a carbomb
bullet
or slit throat
we never know how we'll go
no one but God knows
what the future holds
you could live to be a century old

things will never be what they were
you have a wife and two babies
mine is a life less pure
no longer knowing you,
for sure

So, we live, love, cry then die
and no one but us
will ever remember the time
we walked hand in hand
down the wooded street
in our green army jackets
that was purest bliss

If you should ever come this
way,
I'll treat you to
some cantaloupe juice
I remembered that
is your favorite fruit

Peace....

To complete the circle, perhaps we should think about the absurdity of rebuilding a nation that never had to be torn down. But we have no choice. That is the unforgiving sludge so many nations find themselves in.

Summer's End

2004-09-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

This world of flux, of incessant suffering and pain. This life we live.... floating flotsam and jettisoned jetsam....is a life, as Curtis Mayfield so poignantly stated, of trying to get over....

Call it the world of September 12th....

Theoretically, my philosophy is basically postmodernist, so when you read these writings, expect nonlinear, occasionally abstruse and sometimes labyrinthine retellings of what transpired in the world of Sirius 1....

For now, I will keep it simple. One of the highlights of the past summer was seeing DJ Premier and Pete Rock at Union. Premier is from Texas, as many of you may or may not know, so the vibe could best be described as copasetic. I am one of those people who will walk into the record store and buy Premier's Step in the Arena instrumentals before I actually buy a Gangstarr album, so you can imagine how psyched I was. It was so cool to see all the unknown dredz and nappyheadz at the show. One lady even wore a Funkadelic t-shirt with the image of Maggot Brain. Chicken George, recently transplanted to Austin, represented for the mellow crowd but I missed his set. Houston is a strange town (more on that to come), but for one moment in time, it felt right. Perseph 1, one of the illest MCs in this world, was repping Pam Grier style for the black female microphone scientists and I, of course, repped for the black female turntable scientists. When Pete Rock stepped up to the tables, it was over. He worked all the gems you would expect into his set and when he played "They Reminisce Over You," all the brothers went crazy. We were all saying the words. And to think this was a free show. I even walked alone back through Midtown feeling like it was Summer of 1993 all over again. Back when Hip Hop had one of its last golden ages. Remember the vibe in 1992?

To conclude my very first foray into the abyssmal darkness that is the ubiquitous blog, I decided to give you a piece of my mind. I wrote this while waiting at the bus stop earlier today:

People taking it to the streets

of Port au Prince

haven't seen anything like it since

the late sixties,

the second age of collectivity....

Mumia Abu Jamal wrote about

my parents

did he write about yours?

Under a sky colored orange

in gray times

in leave it to tomorrow

walk surreptitiously

back through yesterday times

the sun never shines

the weeping willow

cries tears to reminisce

on bygone halcyon days and years

it was the hot time

the black gold of the sun

24-carat black time

the world of Cleopatra Jones spins

with soundtrack provided by Taste of Honey

and the soul brother owns

the key to the Age of Aquarius

the Mecca and Medina

of the third eye hinterland

where are the mystic brothers?

in Illadelphia or Northern Africa?

So, we take it to the streets

only to find out the sky is about to drop

Later, Sirius 1