Innocence and Revision: The Life of Aaron Rushing

I've been thinking a lot lately about a student of mine, Aaron Rushing, who was a talented writer and guitarist killed in May of last year. The anniversary of his death passed just a bit ago and I wrote something for Gawker. You should check it out. The Chicago Tribune Jazz critic Howard Reich put together a really powerful piece about his life. Below is a video that accompanied the Tribune piece.

Open up the door

Give me schools

and give me better books, 

so I can read

about myself

and gain my true looks

You need Death in your life...

If you haven't heard the proto-punk band Death from Detroit, you need to remedy that. If you haven't seen the excellent documentary about these brothers, A Band Called Death, you also need to handle that as well (it's on Netflix). 

N Team Six

Misstra Knowitall received a disturbing communique from Eric Snowden, the former government contractor turned whistle blower. Snowden decided to finally release the most damning government secret the American government does not want you to know about. What secret would shake the pillars of our government to its absolute core?

The President of the United States has a highly specialized team of secret service agents whose only mission is not to protect Barack Obama from assassins, but to protect him from being called a nigger in public.They are known as N-Team Six.

You might have this thought: Nobody would call the President of the United States a nigger to his face!

Slap yourself for having the previous thought. There is always someone out there willing to call a black man a nigger, no matter what color house he currently receives mail at.  Make a note.

Secondly, remember this?

Captivating isn't it? Just imagine all the (additional) bombs we would have had to drop on Baghdad if even one of those loafers would have connected upside W's fragile bird skull. Cheney and Rumsfeld would be tripping over their scythes to connect the whole thing to Iran's nuclear program. Yellow Cake on the Isotoners. Next thing you know: WWIII

With Obama, that the threat is even more pronounced. You don't even have to throw a shoe. All you need is one shaky Youtube video with the President out at some political function, crossing paths with a redneck who wants to get famous. There's been a couple of near-misses in the past.

Joe the Plumber

This doofus asked a single question in a slightly confrontational way and overnight became a cross between Walter Conkrite and America's Next Top Model.

Janet Brewer

She scolds the President of the United States like he was a valet at Steak and Shake and gets on the New York Times Bestseller list. Meanwhile, Michelle is the angry black woman.


And then there's this guy.

During the President's state of the Union address he got up and called the leader of the free world a liar. You know as he was sitting there, palms sweating, practicing what he was going to say, it had to occur to him that he could write his name in history forever if he stapled that little six-letter word to the back of his outburst. (Relative) good sense may have prevailed, but according to the Snowden files, the scene could have ended much differently..

The President's anger is clear in the tape, but what's not clear is the purpose of his elbow shift right afterwards. According to the documents, that gesture is the secret presidential signal to the N-Team Six snipers in the top balcony. No, he didn't call me a nigger. Joe Wilson doesn't know how lucky he was that night..

Aside from disturbing the President's boiling reservoir of ancient slave anger, resulting in dead rednecks, there is a bigger concern. When you think about it, America having Black president is an absurdity. It becomes even more absurd when you realize that it's in the national security interest of this country to make sure that said President is not brought to the "nigger level". That's the same country that employs the President to maintain the "nigger level" in the first place. So, if they assassinigger the President, we could potentially see a fracture in the space-time continuum. 

But these threats to our security are not just domestic. According to Snowden, there's been quite a few times where an insult to the President almost resulted in the button being pushed.

Chinese President President Xi Jinping

German President Angela Merkel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Russian President Vladamir Putin 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

So, let us not forget the unsung bravery and valor of the people who really keep this country safe: N TEAM SIX. We salute you.

All You Hip Hoppers

The only good thing about BluBlockers was the commercial and the only good thing about the commercial was when a brother stepped to the mic and instructed the hip hop nation to get themselves a pair of BluBlockers. That was the first commercial I can remember for white people that actually featured a black man rhyming. And although Dr. Geek had on a silly a$$ sombrero, this was no MC Hammer buck dancing for popcorn chicken.

What you say, Hammer? Proper.

Dr. Geek made BluBlocker millions and all he ever got was a free pair of cheap glasses. Same old story, but Dr. Geek can rhyme. Off the head, his flow bops along, brimming with wit and good nature. If he seems professional in his approach, its because he is. At the time Dr. Geek was working Venice Beach, rapping for tourists. Imagine being a large black man trying to make a living rapping at white folks who are on vacation to get away from large black men. He had to find a way to disarm them, without resorting to shuffln. Notice how he plays it cool about the glasses at first, but then lights up when the salesman gives him the pair. Despite his happiness with the free shades, he stays professional, even reminding customers to order them at home. 

You can call his flow corny, but Dr. Geek gets much respect as the ultimate blu collar MC. 

Memo to Humanity: Ain't Nuttin New

Although the footage from the Russian meteor strike is amazing, it's worth stating that rocks have been hitting our big rock for billions of years. The only thing that's changed is our collective awareness of said rocks. If it weren't for all of the electronic devices that were honed in on the banal lives of every day humans, we would have never seen the sky filling with fire. Thirty years ago it would have been relegated to the News of the Weird section in the back of the paper. A chuckle about a bunch of jumpy Ruskies Now it's different. We've got YouTube and Twitter. Now we're more acutely aware of our situation. How it impacts (sorry) us.

I wonder, however, whether it's not the same in some ways. We're already so inundated with dazzling pictures and media that although a meteor strike has some sway over us, it's not like in the past. There were points in human history where the course of whole civilizations were turned by celestial events. Not so much anymore. Now, with each passing hour the meteor is losing page views to WorldStartHiphop.com. 

And what about investing in meteor-deflection technologies? Save your money. When it comes, there will be no deflection. Asks the dinosaurs in their 165th million year. The universe runs on a timetable that is much too large for us to understand in our present form. He's your burning hot reminder.

But what about investing more on something we can control? How about putting some money into misery-deflection technologies, like protecting our children from the proliferation of death mechanisms on our streets?  

The War on White Terror

I'm glad the White House released evidence that we've all long suspected: NeO is really just a Jake Sully in disguise. Same narrative, different genres. 

 
It was funny to hear the commentators saying that they doubted NeO could clap em. The underlying assumption is that he's soft. That he can't fight. He's already proved them wrong. Do we have to review the debate footage with John McCain.

Or remind you of when he said this:

Or any of these people:

Jack Ryan

Alan Keyes
Clark Kellog

Jesse Jackson
Somali Pirates

Bill Clinton
Donald Trump

Jim Demint
Osama Bin Laden
Mitt Romney

Whether you dig him or despise him, if your honest with yourself you have to admit that dude doesn't touch the canvas often. Now that doesn't mean he's going to come through and save the day on gun control. I kind of doubt he will.

But he's got to do something. If it hasn't hit home by now, he'll never get it: Somebody has to stem the flow of gun overproduction. The people who are making billions on this are not patriots. These are multinational corporations, run by people who aren't worried about the Constitution. The only part of the constitution that corporations are ready to defend involve making money. Some might say it would be irresponsible to the stockholders if it was any other way.

I have students who know the girl who was killed the other day in Chicago. The ones who knew her talked about how good a friend Hadiya Pendleton was. She had just got done performing at the inauguration, for Christ sakes. Dead a week later. Unfortunately she's typical. Her death seems just as inevitable as the slaughter at Newtown. I'm not trying to hard or cynical, but I don't see how a major move against death sellers is not inevitable. He has to take on the corporations that support the NRA puppet. The corporations that flood the hood with cheap killing machines. But first he has to convince the White man to stop being so scared. Call the initiative: The War on White Terror.

The War on White Terror is all about getting white folks to stop being so scared all the goddamn time. Of course the president wouldn't frame it that way. His slogan could be something simple like, White People Ain't Got Nothing to Be Afraid of. Up to this point he's been trying to run a covert campaign with the same message. That's why he was bowling and throwing baseballs and making beer in his garage. And it's mostly worked, but what about all of the people who just don't like Black people? You holding a gun is never going to look right.  

In order for that photo to be a political asset, you have to convince that same white man that it's a good thing you're skeet shooting. As far as he's concerned, you could be holding a Mac-10 or an uzi or a spear. At the end of the day you're just an agitated nigger who needs to be pacified. If NeO released the photo to help White Americans to confront their fear of a Black Planet, I'm all for it. If he did it to try and get in the good graces of racists, I'm not feeling it. 

But in the meantime, Mr. President, Misstra Knowitall stands ready to do whatever I can to assist in the War on White Fear. My first initiative will be to sell a line of greeting cards that you can send to your white friends. The occasion: Thank You for Not Being Racist! Even if they are racist, send it to a white person you appreciate. Not only will you do a good deed, you'll do a good turn for your country.

Stay tuned for the link to my Etsy. 

On the Sugarfoot

Remember this?

That came from this:

RIP Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner

Mr. Kid President, will you please be my mayor..?

If you haven't seen this kid already, you gotsta catch up. Another bit of brilliance from Kid President. 

Do you think a young brother could really play a role like this before NeO? Wouldn't  it have come off strange? Tragic?

But not now. You can allow yourself to feel the hope that's embodied in this very slickly produced movie because it's documenting demonstrated truth. The order has changed. Even if Obama's a bioengeneered robot, the narrative he is creating is going to produce a lot more little brothers like the one in this video. I feel pepped.  

The Substitute

Thankfully, I never had to play the role of substitute. It's a different type of teaching experience because you enter the classroom under a premise that no one really believes: that you are just as capable as the educator you're replacing. In reality, you have no idea what was previously taught, who the children are, or what were the class expectations. Hopefully, the teacher has left a detailed lesson plan, but even if they did, the kids know the deal. You are an adult they are unaccountable to. If something goes wrong in this class, on this day, you will be blamed.

Mr. Fullwood was my model for what a sub should be. He was a huge guy (to us) and big enough that you didn't feel bad about making jokes about him, but also big enough that you didn't want to piss him off because he could squash you. He smiled like a yellow-toothed Cheshire cat at all of our dumb jokes, even when Jon Silk always asked him if he was going to be giving the class the "full wood" that day. Although his voice was coated with tar from the pack of smokes he kept in his breast pocket, he didn't raise his voice often. But when he did, people got quiet. Most importantly, he had both a sense of humor about his dour profession, and a corresponding pride in what he was doing. He made us do whatever was on the lesson plan and he made sure nobody got too crazy. Even though it must have been primarily a way to scratch a couple of nickels together, we got the sense that he cared about us--even if only for 60 minutes.

This experience, along with my time working in Baltimore public schools (Higher, higher!), inspired me to write The Substitute, which was recently published in 2 Bridges Literary Review. Check it out when you get a chance. But before you do, prepare yourself with some instructional videos from Key and Peele.




The Book of Mormon: A Review

Within five minutes you can tell why The Book of Mormon is so popular. The story, the music, the cast are all awesome. It finds pathos and humor in surprising places, namely among the struggles of Mormon missionaries to reconcile faith and religious identity. In the end, you'll never look at those gentlemen in crisp white shirts and earnest smiles the same way again. Its a shame that the play, which takes place in Uganda, doesn't give the natives the same courtesy.

One of the best things about South Park is how well it humanizes its most outrageous characters. Cartman could say the most objectionable thing imaginable about someone, but you knew where he was coming from. He's a kid who wants to be loved and the reason is clear whenever the show features his mother. He becomes a rounder (sorry) character because you see what makes him vulnerable and what he loves. Then he becomes more than just a Dbag kid.

The Book of Mormon is especially adept at providing such rounding to the Mormons in the play. That's laudable because it would have been really easy to make a play bashing Mormonism and making it all sound like a bad joke. Nobody's really going to stand up to defend Mormons and they represent a bit of an easy target. But it's clear from the beginning of the musical, when the protagonists first meet up, that the writers have done their homework into the rituals and modes of thought that Mormons have adopted. Of course nothing can capture the total experience of all Mormons, but the opening number, Hello, does a brilliant job of giving us insight into how important the concept of Mission is to Mormons. They've got a story they want to tell and they deploy a lot of resources to spreading it. Plus its catchy as hell, so you find yourself repeating it. It instantly humanizes them.

The introductory song of the Ugandans, Hasa Diga Eebowai however, has a different effect. Their song is a sorrow song, but instead of praising God or begging for his mercy, the number is an indictment of God's cruelty. That's interesting because it goes against the "spiritual negro" trope that so often comes up when Black/White binaries are presented in the culture. If Black people ain't got nothing else, they're supposed to be able to pray to the Lord above. Instead, they literally tell God to go fcuk hisself.

And all of that would be fine if the Uganda in the House of Mormon were really a reflection of what life is actually like in Uganda. The Africans sing that 80% of them have AIDS, but even in at the height of the AIDS crisis in Uganda only 15% of the population was infected. The joke is hyperbolic of course, but we have to also realize that American understandings of Africa are pretty much limited to nature shows and Save the Children ads. In the song we learn that Ugandans tell God to suck it because they have nothing except poverty, despair, rape, and genital mutilation. And of course there is truth in all of these troubling things, but reducing the experience of any group of people to such a limited narrative runs counter to the empathetic consideration they offer the Mormons. Instead the Ugandans are a helpless, miserable people, without history or context beyond their suffering.

 
Later when the protagonist tries to convert a ruthless warlord by singing an awesome (and silly) song, I Believe, about his faith, jittery Africans with machine guns wait to deliver the number's ultimate punchline: sexual violence. Again, although the Mormons' belief system is continually tweaked and made fun of, there's a naive earnestness to it that makes you want to believe right along with them. The Africans are offered no such nuance.

One of the strengths of Trey Parker and Matt Stone is their ability to hold up a mirror to the white American psyche and explore its biases and blindspots. Although the Mormons in the play are explicitly what its about, they are an effective vehicle to getting us to think more about the role religion and belief play in our lives, no matter who we pray to (or don't). And its funny as hell. Those things alone make the play worthwhile and highly recommended.

However, much of the show's humor flows from a White gaze that has little use for the details of Uganda or its people. The moral of the play seems to indicate that all people, no matter their nationality or religion, in the end just want to hear a story that gives them hope and makes it alright to be who they are. I can work with that moral, but it's just too bad that the Ugandan people in the Book of Mormon never become more than empty vessels that need spiritual filling.

The Remorse Code

On my drive home Friday, I was listening to the radio and heard someone mention that they had been crying all day over the murders of children in Connecticut. At the time that struck me as a bit odd, perhaps melodramatic. I had been in school all day and although the news had given me a heavy, dark feeling, I hadn't yet unpacked its significance. I could see feeling bad for them, but crying? Especially since this feels like the millionth time something like this has happened in the last few years.

When I pulled up to the house, my wife Candice was parked out front, with my daughter Lucy perched quietly in her car seat. Lucy is a doll baby, but she almost didn't seem real she was so serene and peaceful. Later, when Candice was making dinner, she insisted on being carried, even though she's almost two years old and a lot harder to hold than she used to be. At one point Candice put her down and walked away. Lucy ran to her and jumped into her arms. Sitting there watching my daughter, it struck me why the death toll was so high. As deadly as guns are, usually it takes a bit of work to kill a person, unless the assailant has specialized training or high caliber weapons. I hadn't heard much about what the suspect was carrying, but seeing my daughter pumping her little arms and legs to get to her mom, it struck me: those children never had a chance. They were too little to run. They were terrified. And that realization made me cry. Hard.

That's when I think I started to get it. Well, really there's a part that you never really get. You just are left with a bunch of pieces that don't fit. So here's some pieces:

I talk about narratives all the time because the stories we tell about the world and ourselves have a lot to do with the things we do. Usually in situations like this where innocent Americans are killed, we start the war narrative and declare war on someone or something. This would be easy if Al Qaeda had broken into a kindergarten and shot up a bunch of kids. We'd call for scalps hijabs immediately. No Muslims allowed within 100 feet of school. Send those prayer rugs through the x-ray scanner. Or let a Mexican "Illegal" shoot up a preschool. Churros would be removed from the lunch menu and we would secure our schools with 100 ft. border fences. Or God forbid the perpetrator was a brother. One in three Black men might end up in prison. Oh wait, never mind. 

But alas, it's not that easy. Those narratives have next steps that involve building things and bombing people, but this one is tough. What do you build, who do you bomb, to protect you from a white man with a gun and a plan to kill? That's even more tough because so much of our understanding of the concept of "hero" is tied to a white man with a gun and a plan to kill.

It's important to understand that, in the words of Malcolm X, the founding fathers were White nationalists. This country wasn't built for White men to take a back seat to anyone, but things are changing. The most obvious sign occurred in 2008, but the erosion of white power has been coming on for some time now. Believe it or not, there was a time in human history when the white man wasn't running everything. It seems that this era is coming to a close. (Not that the political and economic infrastructure will stop serving the interests of the elite; the packaging will just be darker.) This change makes some people anxious. Many of these individuals choose to soothe their anxiety by buying fire arms.

If you are someone who claims the 2nd amendment will protect you from the tyranny of your government, yet you choose not to vote, you are an idiot. No one has an inalienable right to fire arms, especially those who won't participate in the system of government that secures their rights. Besides, how is a Glock going to protect you from a government that can send a predator drone to your house? A

It's also ironic that government operatives have used the firearms of citizens to murder those who would challenge government tyranny. See: MLKjr, Malcolm X, JFK, RFK, to name a few.

Gun control never goes anywhere because too many people are making money selling them. The advertising for their product is on every TV, movie theater, and game console. Weapons that kill people was a $38 billion industry in 2012. That can buy a lot of political ads.

So, maybe we preserve the right to bear arms, but eliminate the right for corporations to make millions producing guns that cause so much misery. Like Chris Rock said, if you really want to stop gun violence, make a bullet cost $10,000.

If the President does take gun control on, he's going to have to push back his whole agenda. Disarming this white man is going to be a tall order. They're not giving up their guns. And it wouldn't be a stretch to say that pushing tougher gun laws would make the President more of a target. Justin Beiber ain't even safe these days. Honestly, I fear for NeO. 

Talk about product placement

But I think he has to take it on. Half measures aren't going to work here. No more commissions or investigations or studies. After 9-11, we signed away half of our civil liberties--you know rights guaranteed by the Constitution? People grumbled but didn't say much out of fear of being called unpatriotic. But why is this right untouchable? I'd rather give up my gun then allow the government to tap my phone calls without a warrant.

And I know that the easiest win will be to eliminate the access to high-caliber semi-automatics, but that's not what's killing the kids around my way. NeO mentioned kids in Chicago who were victims of gun violence, but our children are being wiped out by small handguns that are cheap and powerful. If you can't get people to give up their guns, you've got to find a way to make it more expensive to get them.

There ain't nothing about whitey in here.

On Richard Pryor's birthday:

Baby Knowitall

This past week was the first time I've spent significant time away from Baby Knowitall. My wife warned me that I was going to miss her, but I wasn't prepared for the sadness. Happily, Baby and Wifey came back on Saturday. Now, when I see James Brown and his daughter Deanna performing (outfits match!) I don't have to act like I got something in my eye. Sniff.

BTW: I've seen Baby Knowitall exhibit those same  moves to an equally funky cut: Mary Had a Little Lamb.

To Lucille

Narratives of Terror

Shortly after the brutal Gabrielle Giffords shooting earlier this year, the name Jarod Loughner was injected into the American consciousness. Listening to the devastation that he caused, one couldn't help but grimly do what we do when we need answers to things: Google Search. 

The news media studiously instructed that the footage would be disturbing, and it was more than that. All of them are eerie, but America: Your Last Memory in a Terrorist Country, terrified me when I first tried to watch it. With its Death Metal soundtrack ("let the bodies hit the floor" is the refrain), it featured a desert scene with a single American flag posted on a dirt mound, scrapping the ground. A figure appears in a black cloak and a happy face mask.  Happy face mask has only one arm ("his right one!", the on-screen comment prompts). While the music rages, Happy face mask lifts the flag and lights it on fire (patriots burn flags to preserve their honor, fyi). Then he creeps off like a creep.

I felt like I was in that scene from The Ring when that creepo girl crawls out of the TV. I stopped the Loughner video because I thought happy face mask might crawl out of my laptop if I let it run to the end. In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, this message directly from a killer was a surreal experience (if we're even allowed to use that word anymore) and a natural extension of our conversation to the digital world. Jarod Loughner probably knew for some time that his name would be searched for. (Afterall, that's what it means to be truly famous; people have to search for you.) He knew that they would search for him and he wanted them to see something special. Not some dumb skateboarding videos. Not some girlfights. Not some stupid mass transit rider beating on some other stupid mass transit rider. No, his videos would explain to people why he was doing what he was doing. Not only would he take lives, but as a child of our culture he knew the most important thing to control was the narrative of his actions. 

It turned out that this became kind of a moot point afterwards. Most of the videos were just rambling PowerPoints about world conspiracies, bad grammar, and the like. He seems to be wanting to say something about the power structures that lay under the ones we see. He wants to uncover the conspiracy that deceives 85% of us. Now, I believe the world is run on conspiracies, but the narrative Loughner kicked just didn't make much sense. There were snippets of truth tied together with a lot of nonsense. That's one of the real shames. He didn't even make sense. All that suffering he caused, that suffering he carries, all because of a war raging in his own head.

So what do we learn from it? If you thought the Giffords massacre would deliver the public support for stricter gun laws, you're crazy. With a Negro as president, we all just feel a little safer if the White man gets to keep his guns. Americans like being able to kill, and they don't need anybody to tell them different.

And as far as people taking the shooting as a message to tamp down the political rhetoric, have you seen "Give Us Your Cash, B****"? If you haven't, you really need to take a look to get an update on what the worst racist and sexist thing you've seen in a while. This is some cutting edge racism and sexism. It's educational. Sadly, the song and video look like they really were directed by an employee of Black Entertainment Television.

But maybe this doesn't have to be a meaningless event. Maybe we could actually learn something real about a danger we face. We are entering the age of narrative reassignment. Now, before someone does something horrendous, their first concern will be how to frame their own story. We've been constantly told that we have to "sell ourselves as a brand" and this is no different. Before they do what they do, killers will actually set the table for the crimes they are going to commit.

You know Facebook had to get their credit.

This came to mind recently because of the coordinated bombing and shooting that took place in Oslo yesterday. Apparently someone detonated an explosive and then later opened fire at a kids camp, leaving an estimated 80 92 dead in his wake. The suspect in the crime, Anders Behring Beivik, who looks like he stepped from the pages of of Norwegian Vogue, has a twitter account with only one post. What does it say? "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests." There has also been mention of "disturbing" right-wing internet postings from Beivik. Don't expect to see less of this kind of thing. Whoever conducted the 9/11 operation inspired a generation of murderous auteurs who want to control their own narratives. 

And to be honest, it's not the Loughners and the Beiviks that we really need to be worried about. They commit their crimes and become footnotes. The real controllers of narratives are the Murdochs and the Liebermans and the Bushes and the Bin Ladens and the...wait for it...Obamas. These are the men who sow narratives before they do their killing. 

9/11. The Taliban. Al Qaeda. Osama Bin Landen. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Saddam Hussein. That pretty much summarizes the last ten years of fear. It would almost be funny if not for the thousands of lives lost and the trillions of dollars wasted (stolen). Although the way Loughner and Beiviks managed to coordinate their online presences with their crimes may be disturbing, it pales in comparison to the horrors that await if we don't stop consuming these narratives that explain away murder and exploitation.

Oh, by the way, how's that Libyan petroleum extraction project going? 

Patti Labelle Takes the Alphabet to Chuuch.

My Peoples

How often do you look at a blog's links, anyway? They're just there. Half of them don't work. Some of them haven't been updated in twenty years. They're all out of context, with no description or reason for you to want to click on them.

So, as a public service, here's the rundown on my current list of "My Peoples" and why you should read them.

Crystal Wilkinson

Crystal Wilkinson is the author of Blackberries, Blackberries, Water Street, and Birds of Opulence (forthcoming). I had the pleasure of both taking a class and being an associate instructor for Crystal back in the good ole days at Indiana University. Even though I didn't get a chance to have her in workshop, she taught a young(ish) Misstra Knowitall a ton about writing and teaching.

Her blog is a must read because it gives you insights into not only the writer, but also writing and the writing biz. I would recommend starting with her post about how she has to remind her mama that she's a writer and what that actually means. She's also got a dynamite post about the pressures that writers feel now that social media and the writing business have formed such a close (incestuous?) relationship.

Pedro Bell

Pedro Bell  helped develop the P-Funk cosmology and his writing and visual art are essential to understanding any endeavor that purports to be "on The One". This links to Pedro's MySpace account. I haven't heard from my brother in a while, but there's some good autobiographical information and if you leave him a message he might write you back. You should check out the series of interviews I did with him. Dude is deep.

 "So I don't steal nothing." Miss you, ND.

Under the Blue Light: Indiana Review Blog

What can I say about my baby? She's grown up so much *sniff* since I was editor. Now they've got a new design and they do awesome contests and they have interviews and authors reading. *Sigh*. Well, check out the newest posts, but if you want to walk back down memory lane, take a look at the beautiful IR editors at AWP in 2007. 

Cake and Potatoes: Jackson Brown

Jackson Brown and I were roommates back at IU. I thought I had it going on, but this brother is a writer, cartoonist, musician, and one of the coldest MCs to darken (ahem) the hallways of Ballantine Hall. Cake and Potatoes is all that and a bag of corn chips. Funny, silly, searing, smart ass hell, and beautifully drawn. It looks like he's on hiatus (or is that "hi-itis?) but check out his greatest hits. For my taste, Off the Chain is one of my favs.

 

I so tried to find a pic without a Black hand holding a link card. Alas. 

Jericho Brown

I was lucky enough to meet this brother during my Funk Issue days. This links to the book site for his collection, Please, which if you ain't got, you need to get. It's funky and all that. I also did an interview with Jericho that is, of course, quite funky.

Remember me?

Post No Ills: Kyle Dargan

Post No Ills is Kyle's brain child, which like a lot of his brain chilluns, is both smart and cool. You can find great reviews of the latest in literature, movies, and politics here. They just did a review of Evie Shockley's The New Black, which I gotsta go cop. Oh, what's that you say? Did they do an interview with Misstra Knowitall himself? Well, as a matter of fact they did.

Patrick Rosal

My best memory of Patrick Rosal is at the end of the Indiana Review Funk Issue reading when he jumped on the piano and started everybody to singing Billy Ocean's "Suddenly." (I'm glad he knew all the words because I wasn't doing nothing but humming until "...wake up and suddenly you're in love!") Pat's an amazing poet and someone who writes with his heart. He's been blogging for a minute and on his site you can find everything from poetics to politics to boxing.Check him out.

Play Vicious: Ro Pulliam

I met Ro in Baltimore during my Americorps days. I lived in a house with four(!) roommates and somebody got the brilliant idea that we needed another one. Thank God we did. Ro's my man. A renaissance man who holds it down with the words, music, and web design. His site is complex and fly, just like him.

 
Datsun Flambe: Rion Scott

I met Rion Scott during the Funk Issue (see a pattern?) and if you want to read somebody, you should read him. He's smart and funny as hell (see another pattern). He's publishing some great stuff over at PANK magazine, but his updates at Datsun Flambe are keepers. 

The Spire: Shawna Ayoub

Shawna Ayoub is a writer of Lebanese-American descent that keeps it real. I met her at Indiana University and that was one of the first things I learned about her in workshop. She's thoughtfulness, humility, and honesty shine through in her work. She shares a lot of her work at The Spire, along with life reflections. Cool stuff.

Sorry, I couldn't resist

Tayari Jones

Writer, teacher, hustler. I picked up her first book, Leaving Atlanta, while I was still in the wilds of Minnesota, and I had to keep stopping myself from trying to write like her. This site is not only good for getting insights into her process, but it's essential for keeping up with what's going on with African-American fiction. Oh, and does she have any interviews with Misstra Knowitall? Funny you should ask.

Secret Inside Girl: Vanessa Mancinelli

From her "About" page:  Vanessa Mancinelli: 1. Writes fiction. 2. Teaches literature. 3. Lives in Los Angeles.

I would also like to add: 4. Is obsessive about her teaching 5. Is obsessive about her planning.  6. Sings a mean Bill Withers. You need to check out her Seriously, this just happened post. Hilarious.

Ten Amazing Obama Facts

Amazing Fact #1. In order for President Obama to be defeated, someone must beat him.

With his poll numbers flat-lining, the economy in the tank, and the government on the verge of shutdown, things look rather bleak for NeO. But before Rethugs get too happy, to paraphrase Guru from Gangstarr: Who's going to take the weight? After all the speculation and punditry, someone's got to step to the podium against this dude. Who is going to be able to not get blowed away? This fact segues nicely into the next...

Amazing Fact #2: People who bet against NeO tend to lose their money.

Jack Ryan

John McCain
Alan Keyes
Clark Kellog

Jesse Jackson
Hillary Clinton
Somali Pirates

Bill Clinton
Donald Trump

Jim Demint
Osama Bin Laden

Questions?

Amazing Fact #3: Incumbent presidents hardly ever lose.

Not only do they have access to the full resources of the United States government, they also have considerable power in shaping the national conversation. Plus, if the President is serving the interests of the rich elite, they are going to give him their economic support instead of supporting an unknown quantity. Tax rates are lower than ever. Corporate profits are at near-record levels. The war business is booming. Isn't this the change that the economic elite believe in?

Amazing Fact #4: Killing Bin Laden will not get Obama reelected.

As much as people imagined that Osama Bin Laden's death would ensure President Obama's reelection, they fail to realize that NeO won't get credit for it because it doesn't fit the narrative we have for him. Dubya was the cowboy, busting his guns, scalping Injuns. In the last act of his presidency, after billions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, he was supposed to be able to bring Bin Laden's head home for the wall collection. Instead, the more he tried, the more the terrorists laughed and called him a dumbass.

Frankly, by the end of his term I just felt kind of bad for the guy--in that Tiki Barber/John Edwards/slow-motion-car-crash kind of way. Bin Laden (and Bin Laden's colleagues at the CIA) so obviously outsmartted Dubya that it didn't seem fair, cruel even. The American people were ready to move on in some respect. New movie, please.

Obama killing Bin Laden is kind of like Superman killing the Joker. There's no emotional subtext to the thing. I mean, thanks and all, but what does Seal Team 6 have to do with Dreams From My Father?

Amazing Fact #4: Osama Bin Laden was assassinated, and we're all cool with that. 

According to dictionary.com, "assassination" is to kill suddenly or secretively, especially a politically prominent person. But assassinate is such an icky word, right? It doesn't seem appropriate. An assassination has a "victim," and a "perpetrator". Bin Laden was evil, so he couldn't have been a victim. America was in the right, so we couldn't have been perpetrators. So, instead, we'll just call it a "military action." Ah, that's better.

The first accounts of the military action had Bin Laden going out like Tony Montana, guns blazing. And then it turned out he was unarmed, but was "going for something." And then one of his wives said that he was actually in custody when he was shot. And then finally the military said they weren't going to comment further. It's amazing that Bin Laden didn't know better than to listen when the Navy Seals asked him to take out his license and registration. They been getting brothers like that for years. Word to Diallo.

But when you get right down to it, this amounted to nothing more than another instance of CIA downsizing; a former employee got cut from the payroll. Bin Laden joins a long line of other former employees who have suffered similar fates: Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, Pablo Escobar, Freeway Ricky Ross, Rafael Trujillo. All given similar pink slips. Don't call us, we'll call you.

Amazing Fact #5. The President is a blues comic.

I saw the Obama impersonator who got pulled off stage at the Republican Leadership Conference and I was impressed. The President can be a bit stoic sometimes, so it's understandable that a lot of impressions are overly wooden, but this guy was putting on that Barack Bright Boy comedy swag. Although the audience was initially uncomfortable with the racial themes of some of the jokes, the loud guffaws reflected the reckless abandon one might enjoy at a Republican event, free of the harsh gaze of sensitive Negroes.

Even though the jokes (Barack celebrates half of Black history month; Barack's mom loved a Black man, but her name wasn't Kardashian; Barack and Michelle as Esther and Fred from Sanford and Son) weren't the most clever in the world, they were cringe-inducing like the best of NeO humor. He has a way of implicating his audience in a joke. Kind of like Richard Pryor in Live on the Sunset Strip, joking about the jokes people told after he caught himself on fire freebasing. He tells the joke to not only make you laugh, but also shine a light on what you're willing to laugh at. I think that's also called the blues.

What's that? Richard Pryor running down the street.

Remember the time he went on national TV, called a policeman stupid, and joked that the Secret Service would shoot him down if they thought he was trying to break into the White House?

Remember his first presidential press conference when he called himself a mutt?

And who can forget his "I-don't-come-to-your-job-kicking-****s-out-of-your-mouth" moment at the White House Correspondents dinner? Trumpwnd. 

***BONUS***

This Chinese ad for KFC is not only fantastic because it features the President getting squashed by a fried chicken sandwich, it also shows Americans having more enthusiasm for the offending sandwich. And although it's probably racist (having the first Black President assassinated by a piece of chicken is all types of messed up) it seems more like a scathing critique of how dumb Americans are. Good one, China. Oh wait, isn't Kentucky Fried Chicken an American company?

Amazing Fact #6: Lupe was right.

Lupe Fiasco recently called NeO a terrorist. Actually, he said that President Obama and all the past and future presidents of the United States have used and will use terrorism to advance American interests. This statement may be shocking to some, but in the words of Gil Scott-Heron: "America leads the world in shocks. Unfortunately America does not lead the world in deciphering the causes of shocks."

Although he is the first Black President, Obama is beholden and controlled by interests that continue to deploy terrorism to achieve their aims. I think we're sadly learning that the adjective (Black) hasn't done much to modify the noun (President).

Amazing Fact #7: Being an Obama supporter ain't what it used to be.

So, refresh my memory. What does it mean to be an "Obama supporter" nowadays? What exactly are you supporting? I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I had an earlier post about how NeO was encountering the "Presidential" narrative, which is pretty much like the Western Cowboy narrative. Swagger into town, kill some brown skins, and save the day. These days the Obama doctrine sounds more like an OutKast remix: Bombs over Baghdad. Bombs over Waziristan. Bombs over Sana'a. Bombs over Helmand Province. Bombs over Tripoli. Is he going for the record of brown people bombed at the same time? Sad to say, but I think he's got W beat already.

Of course there are reasonable justifications for every one of those conflicts. Something about democracy. Something about terrorist infrastructure. Something about protecting civilians. Something about surgical strikes. Something about insurgents. Something about rebels. Something about regime change. To paraphrase Zora Neale Hurston, these are just "words walking without masters, all together like harmony in a song." However you sing it, the song is about the control of natural resources at the expense of human life.

 Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you

The depressing fact about our President is that he's good at his job. What other human on the planet would be capable of coping with the kind of crisis that this brother has dealt with? He's phenomenal at his job, but the job is imperial in nature. John Wayne had to bust guns to be John Wayne. And somebody's got to be at the end of that gun. That works for the movies, but it has little to do with ensuring democracy or human rights. So even though a part of me really loves the brother and wants his narrative to keep on teaching and inspiring me, there's an ugly element to this narrative that's more troubling by the day.  




Amazing Fact #8: The President, for one, welcomes our robot overlords.

Did we really need to reauthorize the Patriot Act by robot? Has everyone forgotten that Skynet went operational on April 19th and by now is well on its way to annihilating human civilization? As if we didn't have enough to worry about.

Today's Word: Judgment Day

Amazing Fact #9: NeO can still save America.

The health of American democracy depends on the balance of powers. NeO has failed so far to reign in the executive branch. We've got more secrets. More wire taps. More restrictions on civil liberties. Less transparency. This type of environment lends itself to the type of efficiency that is attractive in times of crisis. However, this type of environment serves to weaken democratic institutions in the long run, and it ironically foments more times of crisis. Whatever you may think of NeO, you have to concede that it could always get much worse. If he doesn't work to restrain executive power we'll be destined to have a crazy president with immense, unchecked power. Need an illustration? Three words: President Michelle Bachman.

In related news...

Amazing Fact #10: He's probably not going to do that thing that you thought he was going to do.

Remember that thing that you were really hoping NeO would change way back on election day in 2008? If he hasn't done anything on it in his first term, it's probably not going to happen in the second term either. Just so you know.

Amazing Fact #11: If he doesn't do it, we have to do it ourselves. 


As true today as it was in 2008 or 1908 or 1808.