We moved back to the Green Trails subdivision of Lisle last August. We had previously lived in a newer, larger house in south Naperville, but we quickly grew homesick for the wooded, small neighborhood charm of the area where we used to live.
The new house is smaller and older, but it is located on a cul-de-sac, so the street gets virtually no traffic. We thought of it as a perfect location because the back yard is large enough and set far enough off the main street that the children can play safely around the house without us having to worry much.
The family across the street has 3 boys ranging from the ages of 7 to 12. There are toddler girls on the block who, we are sure, will be playing with our daughters this summer, and there are high-school students up and down the block who will possibly make good babysitters over the next few years. This is the perfect area for us.
Our next-door neighbors, we'll call them the Rationále's, greeted us warmly the first few times we met them. They told us about the wonderful relationship they had with the family who lived in the house before us, an elderly Chinese couple named John & Cora.
Mother Rationále, we’ll call her Screechy Hag for reasons to be explained later, believes the world revolves around her 16-year-old daughter, who we’ll call Daughter of Screechy Hag. Karen and I sense that there were health difficulties during the pregnancy or during Daughter of Screechy Hag’s infant years that created this obsession in her mother, but a relationship that can be endearing becomes odd and annoying with this family.
Example from a conversation from last August:
Dan: Ah, yes. The weather is gorgeous, isn’t it?
Screechy Hag: Yes. We love to be outside. DoSH (Daughter of Screechy Hag’s nickname) would live outside if we let her.
Dan: Yeah. I notice she’s really into basketball.
Screechy Hag: Oh, yes. She is going to try out for the Naperville North girls team. I think she’ll make it. She can do anything she wants, when she sets her mind to it. She runs five miles a day.
Dan: Reeeaaaallly? Hmmmmm.
(Editor’s note: In the hundreds of times Dan has seen DoSH playing basketball in their driveway, he can count on one hand the number of baskets he has witnessed her actually make. Furthermore, he has never seen her run.)
Screechy Hag: How old are your twins?
Dan: They’re one. They just started to walk.
Screechy Hag: DoSH started walking at 2 months.
Dan: Really! That’s great.
Screechy Hag: I noticed your son plays soccer.
Dan: Oh, yes. We love it. It’s our obsession.
Screechy Hag: DoSH plays lacrosse. It’s a better sport. And she’s the best lacrosse player who has ever lived.
Dan: Wow!
Screechy Hag: Yeah. She’s great at everything she does. If you ever need a babysitter, DoSH would love to do it.
(At this point in the conversation, Dan looks up over Screechy Hag’s shoulder to see DoSH on top of a nine-year-old neighbor pummeling him about the face and shoulders.)
Dan: Wow! Yeah. Thanks for the offer. We’re good for now. Linsay is great with the kids. We’ll keep DoSH in mind, though.
Screechy Hag: Your loss!
Dan: I guess it is.
The Rationále family are dog people. I don’t mean that in a Tank Girl kind of way; however, the way Screechy Hag’s whole world is DoSH, both women’s world is their dog, Franklin. Screechy Hag can often be found having long conversations with Franklin in the front yard. In these conversations, she pauses and nods as if she is listening (during these pauses, Franklin sniffs a flower or licks his privates), and then responds, usually quite loudly, and shrilly, sometimes accompanied by a minor flailing of the limbs. When DoSH and her mother may be arguing about something in the front yard (again, with the loud, and the shrill, and the sometimes flailing of limbs… Times two), DoSH will plead with Franklin to be on her side for just this once.
We have a mangy, ill-tempered cat named Frankie who, since his kitten years has systematically gotten his ass kicked by whichever neighborhood wildlife he has chosen to tangle: other cats, squirrels, rabbits, voles, groundhogs, opossums, toddlers, and the occasional grasshopper. We’ve lived in three houses since he was a kitten, and he has never won a fight. He does, however, possess one talent of which he is immeasurably proud: the ability to drive any dog into a frothing, apoplectic frenzy simply by sitting just out of reach and completely ignoring the writhing beast.
The moment Screechy Hag saw our cat she cautioned me that we should really keep our cat inside because if Franklin got a hold of him, he’d be torn apart, and we just couldn’t hold them responsible for that. I looked at Franklin, a Dauschound about a foot-and-a-half long and not even a foot off the ground, and thanked her for her warning (it was polite enough, I thought. She was concerned about our cat being mauled by her Oscar Meyer wiener, and she didn’t want us to hold it against their family.). I assured her that Frankie is a professional; he’s been an outdoor cat since he was a kitten, and while he has made a habit of losing fights, he’s relatively harmless, and he does come inside most nights. She then told me that Lisle has leash laws and, while she doesn’t care, some people have been known to call Animal Control on roaming animals. I thanked her again for the warning, and assured her that Frankie could take care of himself, to which she replied, “DoSH has been taking care of herself since she was 6 months old.”
OK, then.
I should have known…
Actually, I thought I did know. We decided that, in order to hold the stuff that accumulates with having four children, we would need to purchase a shed to put in our back yard. I paid a visit to the Rationále’s, who have a storage shed in their backyard, hidden behind a fence. I asked them if they would have a problem if we put a shed in our back yard. Father Rationále, we’ll call him PEM for reasons that will become evident later, assured me that, as long as we were not setting it up too close to the path behind the house, they (speaking for the household Rationále) would not have a problem. Screechy Hag cited (wrongly) specific building codes of Lisle and stated that some people in the neighborhood are real sticklers about sheds and stuff, but as long as the shed is on our property, there should be no problem. I remarked that the only way there would be any kind of problem is if someone specifically called the village and asked them to come out measure the placement of the shed, right? They both agreed. Right.
A month after we put up the shed, a village representative showed up on our doorstep responding to a complaint made by “someone in the area”. Our shed is over the line by four feet, not onto our next-door neighbor’s property, but onto the easement area needed for servicing the power box. Our bad. Now, we need to find someone who will help us move this building back onto our property.
I can handle that. We were wrong in our estimation, just like many other residents who could not wade through the legalese in the Lisle Building Codes to determine exactly where to place a shed. The contractors set the foundation down measured it from the path and from the neighbor’s property line. It appeared a safe distance away from annoying anyone: us (by being too close to the house), the neighbors, city workers coming to work on the power box, so we gave them the OK to continue building it. It was out of their hands then.
One day around this same time, Aidan came running into the house in hysterics. He told us that Screechy Hag & Daughter of Screechy Hag told him and Jacob that if they didn’t keep our cat off of their property, they would call the police to come and take the cat away and kill it.
I shot out the door to Karen’s imploring, “Dan! It’s not worth…” PEM answered the door (that Poor Emasculated Man!). He looked tired; he always looks tired. He informed me that Screechy Hag could not come to the door. DoSH, who always seems to be skulking somewhere on the perimeter of whatever drama is taking place, was also nowhere to be found. I asked him if the cat was destroying the plants around his house. No, he wasn’t. I asked him if the cat was trying to get into their house. No. Was the cat attacking them? No. So, the biggest offense was that Frankie occasionally walked on their lawn, and maybe sat on their porch or in their back yard, or maybe taunted Franklin. PEM sighed, ran his fingers through his hair, and said, “My wife is the one who has the problem with the cat, not me. What do you want me to do? I have to live with them.” Dejected, I said I understood. I asked him to ask Screechy Hag if, before calling the police, she could come and talk to me directly and not threaten my children.
Two weeks later, Lisle’s finest showed up at our door. “Someone in the area” called to complain about our cat roaming loose around the neighborhood. The officer said that, yes, there is a leash law, but someone has to call and complain for them to actually do anything about it, and even then, unless they come over to the house and actually find the cat on the Rationále’s property, the only thing they can do is issue a statement and report that a complaint has been made.
Fine. OK. Point taken.
We tried the best we could from then on to keep Frankie in the house as much as possible, but the idea of chasing a cat who clearly does not want to be caught through yards and over fences while trying to get two toddlers who clearly do not want to be caught into car seats is beyond absurd. Try doing it once. The absurdity will become abundantly clear. In these situations, the twins’ needs always win, and Frankie is allowed his freedom for a few more hours.
One unseasonably warm day over winter break, it was twilight, the doorbell rang, and rang again. I opened the door at the third ring to Screechy Hag in full glory, all flailing and loud and shrill, going on about what I can only guess was the cat. I caught “can’t get a moment’s peace”, “leash law”, “Franklin is up barking at all hours of the night!”, and that’s about it, the whole time, DoSH peeping over Mom’s shoulder with a look of dumb, defiant pride plastered across her mug.
I replied that, first, Frankie does not go out at night anymore. Ever. So, the problem must be with her wiener. Second, is he on her property right now at this moment? No. He was in the little assembly of trees down the street, and when Screechy Hag took Franklin down there for their nightly talk and poop, the dog freaked out trying to tear Frankie apart and still appears to be in a very delicate state. I informed her that I was home by myself with the kids at that moment, and asked her if she agreed that packing all four kids up to tromp through the brush at the end of the street in search of a wayward cat is a wildly stupid idea. She disagreed vehemently. I closed the door and continued the bedtime routine.
This year, Spring Break fell during the last week of March. I had to work at the school, and I usually bring Aidan with me, but I thought I’d let him have the first day off at home to hang out with Linsay, Jacob, and the twins. He and Jacob were outside playing, and Linsay was inside the front room with the twins, watching them out the window. DoSH came out to shoot baskets and hurl a few insults at Jacob, things got a little out of hand, and Aidan ended up mooning her just as Linsay was racing out the door to pull Aidan and his pants back into the house. She went inside the house, called her mother at work, who then called the police to come to our house to investigate a report of indecent exposure and unsupervised children. More on this story when I get some more time...
I received a call at work from Linsay, who was understandably very upset.
So, nothing really since then, except for minor things. Soccer balls disappear from our yard every so often. Jacob has informed us that DoSH has used the “F” word in his general direction a few times. Both Mom and Daughter have screamed and hollered and indirectly threatened our cat’s health and safety to our children, but when Karen, Linsay, or I are out there, they are silent, smirking stupidly to themselves or to each other. Our mantra is Ignore ‘Em. In our children’s absence, I add, Fuck ‘Em to the mantra. I think it’s the extra two syllables, the hard consonant sound of tongue striking the roof of the mouth, that helps me feel better. I usually repeat that mantra while having a Black & Tan or two, and the repetition of Ignore ‘em, Fuck ‘em eventually softens, blending into a soothing Ignorrem... Fuggem.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Sunday, October 15, 2006
So, I was just on the Drudge Report...
And up in the upper left-hand corner is this:
"obama?"
Why must they taunt me so?!?!?!?!?!
Why!?
"obama?"
Why must they taunt me so?!?!?!?!?!
Why!?
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Monday, April 24, 2006
Friday, March 10, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
It's been a year?! Damn. It's already been a year.
The other day, while I was taking the boys to school, I switched the radio tuner to the Mancow show. I am not ashamed to admit that I listen to that show, along with whatever strikes me on NPR, Jonathan Brandmeir, and WXRT (if there is a good song on). I am a joy to watch telvision with.
I happened to catch a part of the show where he did a phone interview with Anita Thompson, Hunter's widow. I stopped listening shortly after he said that he wrote his book, Dad, Dames, Demons & a Dwarf, was written in Thompson's style. It was a lackluster interview on the whole, and I couldn't tell if it was Mancow or Anita Thompson who made it so, but I had to get the boy into school, and with the move and all, things just don't seem to interest me as much lately.
I had the revelation described in the title of this post this morning, and thought that I'd post my own tribute to Hunter's style. It's not the first, and it probably won't be the last. Enjoy, please:
I’m careening down Lake Shore Drive at 75 MPH, accompanied by two Puerto Rican hookers, ten cans of warm Pabst Blue Ribbon, and enough ghetto-cut crank to dispatch a South African Cape Buffalo, twice over. It’s a mild April evening, and my trip back from Logan Square is going swimmingly. We’re heading south towards the “S” Curve, and I have no doubt that the archdiocese’s new midnight blue Lincoln Town Car can make the turn at 55, although there is the possibility of some partygoer at the Drake Hotel being at the window just in time to see Archbishop Bryan Roth and his companions jump the guard rail and plow into the first floor of that very building, a landmark of Chicago architecture.
There would be headlines, of course. And Walter Jacobson, that beady-eyed, big-nosed weasel, would probably do an editorial on Fox News about how he knew about me and my predilections all along. That punk’s had my number since he went undercover as a communion wafer to expose the “Silent Seminarian” scandal of 1985.
Whatever. It’s in God’s hands.
Jomayra and Maritza are good stock: thick, sassy bold young things who aren’t afraid of a little chaos. I bailed them out of jail earlier this evening, and now they are feeling very grateful. What is there in this world if there isn’t forgiveness?
They are from hardworking, churchgoing families, and they are discreet, which in my line of work is essential.
Because of this, they have enjoyed experiences their schoolmates could never fathom. They’ve entertained congressmen, visiting dignitaries, and
more than one local children’s television celebrity.
Maritza is snorting a line of crank off of Jomayra’s exposed, ample bosom as I bank the Town Car into the first left-hand turn of the curve. They squeal and wrap their arms around each other, chattering in Spanish something muerte… They’re both 21 and, when naked, could pass for twins.
I churn the wheel to the right, and shout Hot Damn! There’s gonna be some home-fried reckoning tonight, girls! I punch the ceiling of the car and laugh maniacally, my eyes bugging from the crank, my breath sour from beer.
We’re in the straightaway, now; I’ve made it again. Taking a long, deep pull from the beer can, I pray: O my God, at the end of this day I thank you most heartily for all the graces I have received from you. I am sorry that I have not made a better use of them. I am sorry for all the sins I have committed against you. Forgive me, O my God, and graciously protect me this night. Blessed Virgin Mary, my dear heavenly mother, take me under your protection. St. Joseph, my dear guardian angel, and all you saints of God, pray for me. Sweet Jesus, have pity on all poor sinners, and save them from hell. Have mercy on the suffering souls in purgatory.
Illinois Avenue! I pull off at the exit and snake through the side streets, approaching the rectory of Holy Name Cathedral from behind, the way I take Maritza when she is sufficiently wasted and randy. I am 57 years old; she needs a little ramping up for that job. I understand the hazards of her business, and I am willing to help in any way I can.
I pull the car up to the gates, and they open like they always do. Manny, the usual attendant is not there. Instead, there is a small man; his profile distinctive, wait…
Jacobson! You rat-faced swine! I hurl and empty beer can at his head, but I miss. He stands in a false
stoicism, believing that justice is on his side.
Roth, you degenerate chicken-hawk! I’ve got you now! There’s no way you’ll get out of this one. You
thought you had me in ’85. Made me look like a fool, you thought. I’ve caught you, now, you pervert! The uniform he is wearing is too small (Manny is quite small in stature), and he keeps pulling at the bottom of the jacket as if he can make it grow two sizes by sheer will.
First of all, Jacobson, you need to get your facts straight! I have never, nor will I ever, diddle any young boys. Nor old boys, for that matter! I drain my beer and chuck the empty can, this time hitting him directly in the center of his forehead. He doesn’t move.
You can believe what you want, Archbishop! But I was there! There were thirteen naked seminarians wandering the Michigan Dunes, tripping balls on windowpane acid! They all mentioned your name more than once in their insane babble! Explain that one!
His voice is growing shrill, and I realize I will soon need to come up with a plan to calm him down, or three cars full of pissed-off Chicago cops would be arriving at the rectory, and there really would be no way, with such a well-known media icon present, of them overlooking the archbishop of Chicago cavorting with two half-naked Latina prostitutes on a spring evening two weeks from Easter.
Ten of them swore they felt closer to God that night than ever before! I say, opening another can of beer.
Jacobson snorts and pulls at his jacket. Sure! Was that after you had your way with them!?
This time, I throw the full beer at him. It hits him square in the chest, and he flinches slightly as the brew splashes onto his stolen clothes and up onto his face. Let’s get this straight, you treacherous, rotten little sot! You have caught up to me this fine evening escorted by two young, beautiful, Latina women. They have had a rough go of things, and I am comforting them in their hour of need. Hell, in light of the Catholic Church’s recent hits, I should be canonized a saint for my actions! They’re over 18, they’re women, and, good God, they’re talented!
He sneers and finally removes the coat. I can have a news van here in twenty minutes! He shouts, pulling his cellular phone from his pants pocket.
Jacobson! If murder wasn’t a sin, I’d have Maritza’s cousin bash your brains in with a Louisville Slugger, then cut your testicles off and sell them on Ebay!
He closes his phone and leers at Maritza, licking his lips; then, his hands involuntarily come together in a gesture that resembles a fly bathing in its own vomit. Here is my window of opportunity.
Maritza senses my plan and stiffens. It’s true, she may be placing her life into the hands of a psychotic media slut. There’s no telling what this maniac is capable of. But she’s a good girl, and it’s for times like this that her sweet little behind never sits for more than an hour in the holding cell at the Logan Square police department.
Jacobson! Why don’t you and Maritza go up to my room and make yourselves comfortable? I should be up shortly. We can watch CNN, or maybe play a board game.
Maritza kisses me on the cheek, takes the remainder of the crank, and leads Walter Jacobson up to my room by the hand. He follows, muttering incoherently.
I happened to catch a part of the show where he did a phone interview with Anita Thompson, Hunter's widow. I stopped listening shortly after he said that he wrote his book, Dad, Dames, Demons & a Dwarf, was written in Thompson's style. It was a lackluster interview on the whole, and I couldn't tell if it was Mancow or Anita Thompson who made it so, but I had to get the boy into school, and with the move and all, things just don't seem to interest me as much lately.
I had the revelation described in the title of this post this morning, and thought that I'd post my own tribute to Hunter's style. It's not the first, and it probably won't be the last. Enjoy, please:
I’m careening down Lake Shore Drive at 75 MPH, accompanied by two Puerto Rican hookers, ten cans of warm Pabst Blue Ribbon, and enough ghetto-cut crank to dispatch a South African Cape Buffalo, twice over. It’s a mild April evening, and my trip back from Logan Square is going swimmingly. We’re heading south towards the “S” Curve, and I have no doubt that the archdiocese’s new midnight blue Lincoln Town Car can make the turn at 55, although there is the possibility of some partygoer at the Drake Hotel being at the window just in time to see Archbishop Bryan Roth and his companions jump the guard rail and plow into the first floor of that very building, a landmark of Chicago architecture.
There would be headlines, of course. And Walter Jacobson, that beady-eyed, big-nosed weasel, would probably do an editorial on Fox News about how he knew about me and my predilections all along. That punk’s had my number since he went undercover as a communion wafer to expose the “Silent Seminarian” scandal of 1985.
Whatever. It’s in God’s hands.
Jomayra and Maritza are good stock: thick, sassy bold young things who aren’t afraid of a little chaos. I bailed them out of jail earlier this evening, and now they are feeling very grateful. What is there in this world if there isn’t forgiveness?
They are from hardworking, churchgoing families, and they are discreet, which in my line of work is essential.
Because of this, they have enjoyed experiences their schoolmates could never fathom. They’ve entertained congressmen, visiting dignitaries, and
more than one local children’s television celebrity.
Maritza is snorting a line of crank off of Jomayra’s exposed, ample bosom as I bank the Town Car into the first left-hand turn of the curve. They squeal and wrap their arms around each other, chattering in Spanish something muerte… They’re both 21 and, when naked, could pass for twins.
I churn the wheel to the right, and shout Hot Damn! There’s gonna be some home-fried reckoning tonight, girls! I punch the ceiling of the car and laugh maniacally, my eyes bugging from the crank, my breath sour from beer.
We’re in the straightaway, now; I’ve made it again. Taking a long, deep pull from the beer can, I pray: O my God, at the end of this day I thank you most heartily for all the graces I have received from you. I am sorry that I have not made a better use of them. I am sorry for all the sins I have committed against you. Forgive me, O my God, and graciously protect me this night. Blessed Virgin Mary, my dear heavenly mother, take me under your protection. St. Joseph, my dear guardian angel, and all you saints of God, pray for me. Sweet Jesus, have pity on all poor sinners, and save them from hell. Have mercy on the suffering souls in purgatory.
Illinois Avenue! I pull off at the exit and snake through the side streets, approaching the rectory of Holy Name Cathedral from behind, the way I take Maritza when she is sufficiently wasted and randy. I am 57 years old; she needs a little ramping up for that job. I understand the hazards of her business, and I am willing to help in any way I can.
I pull the car up to the gates, and they open like they always do. Manny, the usual attendant is not there. Instead, there is a small man; his profile distinctive, wait…
Jacobson! You rat-faced swine! I hurl and empty beer can at his head, but I miss. He stands in a false
stoicism, believing that justice is on his side.
Roth, you degenerate chicken-hawk! I’ve got you now! There’s no way you’ll get out of this one. You
thought you had me in ’85. Made me look like a fool, you thought. I’ve caught you, now, you pervert! The uniform he is wearing is too small (Manny is quite small in stature), and he keeps pulling at the bottom of the jacket as if he can make it grow two sizes by sheer will.
First of all, Jacobson, you need to get your facts straight! I have never, nor will I ever, diddle any young boys. Nor old boys, for that matter! I drain my beer and chuck the empty can, this time hitting him directly in the center of his forehead. He doesn’t move.
You can believe what you want, Archbishop! But I was there! There were thirteen naked seminarians wandering the Michigan Dunes, tripping balls on windowpane acid! They all mentioned your name more than once in their insane babble! Explain that one!
His voice is growing shrill, and I realize I will soon need to come up with a plan to calm him down, or three cars full of pissed-off Chicago cops would be arriving at the rectory, and there really would be no way, with such a well-known media icon present, of them overlooking the archbishop of Chicago cavorting with two half-naked Latina prostitutes on a spring evening two weeks from Easter.
Ten of them swore they felt closer to God that night than ever before! I say, opening another can of beer.
Jacobson snorts and pulls at his jacket. Sure! Was that after you had your way with them!?
This time, I throw the full beer at him. It hits him square in the chest, and he flinches slightly as the brew splashes onto his stolen clothes and up onto his face. Let’s get this straight, you treacherous, rotten little sot! You have caught up to me this fine evening escorted by two young, beautiful, Latina women. They have had a rough go of things, and I am comforting them in their hour of need. Hell, in light of the Catholic Church’s recent hits, I should be canonized a saint for my actions! They’re over 18, they’re women, and, good God, they’re talented!
He sneers and finally removes the coat. I can have a news van here in twenty minutes! He shouts, pulling his cellular phone from his pants pocket.
Jacobson! If murder wasn’t a sin, I’d have Maritza’s cousin bash your brains in with a Louisville Slugger, then cut your testicles off and sell them on Ebay!
He closes his phone and leers at Maritza, licking his lips; then, his hands involuntarily come together in a gesture that resembles a fly bathing in its own vomit. Here is my window of opportunity.
Maritza senses my plan and stiffens. It’s true, she may be placing her life into the hands of a psychotic media slut. There’s no telling what this maniac is capable of. But she’s a good girl, and it’s for times like this that her sweet little behind never sits for more than an hour in the holding cell at the Logan Square police department.
Jacobson! Why don’t you and Maritza go up to my room and make yourselves comfortable? I should be up shortly. We can watch CNN, or maybe play a board game.
Maritza kisses me on the cheek, takes the remainder of the crank, and leads Walter Jacobson up to my room by the hand. He follows, muttering incoherently.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
The Real Reason Tom Wants Katie Out Of The Spotlight
The group has been a little flighty lately:
I think this about sums up... EVERYTHING.
Back to the desensitization chamber with you, Kat! Another dose of Top Gun will make you a docile little Kitten!
PHOTO CREDITS: DAVID SHRIGLEY, http://www.davidshrigley.com/index.html
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Before the Media Beast Known in these Circles as "O" Comes for Me...
I have a confession to make.
In light of recent events, I know that there will be many more checks and balances for this sort of thing. So, I will head off any bad press at the pass:
I published a web log entry on Wednesday, August 3, 2005 regarding a transcript of a fax received from Hunter S. Thompson, Doctor of Journalism, sent to me from beyond the grave. I did not actually receive the fax, but fabricated its text in its entirety. I do not feel that I have conned anyone, as I stand by the message of perversion and borderline pedophelia one-hundred percent.
I do, however, stand by the authenticity of the fax I received from Charles Bukowski.
I also posted a reply or two on the standby_bert web log, "Chicago's first and foremost source of news, right fucking now (Even sometimes before it happens. Uncanny!)!", in which I referred to Oprah Winfrey as "biggest fake in the history of media".
I regret writing that post, and I have to say now that I am truly sorry.
OK. No I'm not. Fuck Oprah!
Last night, I was finally able to sit down and watch the episode of Oprah mentioned in the standby_bert web log; the one with James Frey; the one that all the news channels are talking about.
If you have no idea what I am talking about, seriously, just Google James Frey or Oprah or A Million Little Pieces, and you'll be up to speed about what I am talking about her. I'm not going at warp speed here. I barely know what I am saying.
So, I watched the show, and as I'd expected, I became infuriated with many, many things. Karen says that it doesn't matter what Oprah says or does, I will be critical. That may be the case. Maybe I sealed my opinion of her a long time ago, but I wonder if I am the only person in America who can see just how much her show revolves around her, and how everything she does, she does to make people talk about her.
This situation with James Frey just pushed me over the edge. Karen actually had to leave the room (O.K., she fell asleep, but she had to "check out" in some way because I was getting ridiculous).
I understand that he fabricated and embellished some of the events and details of his memoir. I agree that he should be called to the carpet for it, and maybe have to answer in front of America. I do agree with that. He wrote an account of his life that he called "truth", and he promoted it as such. He was found to be fraudulent in some of his claims. That's not good.
There are a few things to keep in mind, though. The first is the marketing and promotion. Anyone who is close to the publishing business --not that I am, but I do know a few people who are, and that is how I have fashioned the following opinon-- knows that the memoir is the genre of literature that is being pushed by the publishing companies as of late. Since the mid-nineties, creative non-fiction has been a bigger seller than fiction, when it sells. If memory serves me (and I don't have sources at my fingertips right at this moment), didn't Frey try and publish a similar story to A Million Little Pieces as fiction, but it was turned down? And wasn't it suggested to him that if the same story (because a lot of it was HIS story) was published as a memoir, it would sell a whole hell of a lot more units? This may be me talking out of my ass, but I can swear I read that somewhere. If any one of my four readers knows this not to be true, please let me know. I will edit accordingly.
Oprah Winfrey latched on to this book and added it to her Book Club. She put Frey in the chair opposite her's and interviewed him and talked about how inspiring his story is and everything...
So, this past week, when she had him on and claimed she was "duped" and that she thought all along that the events of this story were just too unbelievable to be true... I wanted to reach into the television and strangle her.
This entry is really about Oprah, I have to admit. All of my issues with her came out in that James Frey interview. It's funny, but I agree that he needs to be grilled, but by Oprah? Oh, man! I am not sure I can condone that. That's just too cruel. That's like having to attend a loyalty workshop run by Judas and Pontius Pilot.
Oprah called into Larry King to defend Frey. I'd love to see how that scene went at the Winfrey/Graham household:
O: Stead! I gotta call in. They're frying my boy!
S: Honey, why don't we see how this plays out. Don't make any rash decisions.
O: Bitch, what I said was rhetorical. If I wanted your opinion, I'd give it to you! (dialing the phone.)
S: Yes, dear.
Then she regretted it, and decided to work that shit out on national TV. She can do that. She owns national TV.
So, she put Frey in the chair opposite her's, and grilled him like a fresh salmon, instead of frying him like Larry King attempted to do, like Mary Karr did (and quite effectively. In fact, it should have been left at that.)
A few years ago, before I purchased an IPass, I was pulling into the line at the Aurora tollbooth after a hard day of dealing with precocious adolescents. I misjudged my brakes and bumped the car in front of me. The guy got out, of course. He asked if I was OK. I told him that I was, and I got out and checked for damage to his car. There was no damage. We were both very nice about the whole thing, at first. It was obviously my fault, and I acknowledged that. It was right then that he changed, and began to shout at me, telling me that next time I'd better pay attention to what I was doing, or there's no telling what might happen to me. I say, "OK, dude. Just get back into your car and go. There won't be a next time."
It's a very strange phenomenom that happens to human beings when they are in control of a situation where one person has made a mistake and they have a choice of whether to exploit that mistake or deal with it and then bury it. In my experience, I have seen that very weak and insecure people make the decision to exploit the mistake. Oprah made this weakness into an artform last week.
Her pursuit of Frey was unconscionable. Shetwisted the knife the Smoking Gun had rightly put into Frey's credibility, and ventured into territory that she had no business going into. Her insistance that the "Lilly" suicide had to be confirmed was terrible. This was obviously something that was close to Frey, and he was very obviously upset about talking about this particular detail in particular, but Oprah had to dig in and get him to give the details of how this woman took her own life.
Again, I completely agree that Frey needs to own up to those details he embellished in his memoir, but I don't agree that he needs to have his personal shit ridiculed on national TV. Her mode of questioning about the death of "Lilly" was unprofessional and just plain rude. Plus, she mocked him by sarcastically stressing "Memoir" at every chance she could. I know that I seem to be pulling at straws, but these are the things that stood out about her attack.
She surrounded herself with sycophants to push the fact that she was embarrased. It's funny that Frey made all the mistakes, but that hour of television was ALL about her. How many times did she mention how embarrassed she was? How he made her look bad... It is true, but when she says it, it somehow becomes cheap and insincere.
Maureen Dowd said that Oprah should "kick Frey's bony... non-fiction ass." What the hell does that exactly mean? I have a translation:
I am just so psyched that Oprah asked me to chime in on James, who? Lipton? Frey? Yes. Frey! Just think of all the reads I will get on Monday! Maybe I can finally finish that memoir! It'll be published for sure! Note to self: hire extra fact checkers!
Same goes for Joel Stein. Same exact fucking thing.
And, I liked their writing before this.
Frey looked genuinely remorseful, and maybe that's his M.O. But this is about Oprah, so it doesn't really matter.
I think if anyone lost credibility in my book, it's her. And I am sure that is going to go a long, long way.
In light of recent events, I know that there will be many more checks and balances for this sort of thing. So, I will head off any bad press at the pass:
I published a web log entry on Wednesday, August 3, 2005 regarding a transcript of a fax received from Hunter S. Thompson, Doctor of Journalism, sent to me from beyond the grave. I did not actually receive the fax, but fabricated its text in its entirety. I do not feel that I have conned anyone, as I stand by the message of perversion and borderline pedophelia one-hundred percent.
I do, however, stand by the authenticity of the fax I received from Charles Bukowski.
I also posted a reply or two on the standby_bert web log, "Chicago's first and foremost source of news, right fucking now (Even sometimes before it happens. Uncanny!)!", in which I referred to Oprah Winfrey as "biggest fake in the history of media".
I regret writing that post, and I have to say now that I am truly sorry.
OK. No I'm not. Fuck Oprah!
Last night, I was finally able to sit down and watch the episode of Oprah mentioned in the standby_bert web log; the one with James Frey; the one that all the news channels are talking about.
If you have no idea what I am talking about, seriously, just Google James Frey or Oprah or A Million Little Pieces, and you'll be up to speed about what I am talking about her. I'm not going at warp speed here. I barely know what I am saying.
So, I watched the show, and as I'd expected, I became infuriated with many, many things. Karen says that it doesn't matter what Oprah says or does, I will be critical. That may be the case. Maybe I sealed my opinion of her a long time ago, but I wonder if I am the only person in America who can see just how much her show revolves around her, and how everything she does, she does to make people talk about her.
This situation with James Frey just pushed me over the edge. Karen actually had to leave the room (O.K., she fell asleep, but she had to "check out" in some way because I was getting ridiculous).
I understand that he fabricated and embellished some of the events and details of his memoir. I agree that he should be called to the carpet for it, and maybe have to answer in front of America. I do agree with that. He wrote an account of his life that he called "truth", and he promoted it as such. He was found to be fraudulent in some of his claims. That's not good.
There are a few things to keep in mind, though. The first is the marketing and promotion. Anyone who is close to the publishing business --not that I am, but I do know a few people who are, and that is how I have fashioned the following opinon-- knows that the memoir is the genre of literature that is being pushed by the publishing companies as of late. Since the mid-nineties, creative non-fiction has been a bigger seller than fiction, when it sells. If memory serves me (and I don't have sources at my fingertips right at this moment), didn't Frey try and publish a similar story to A Million Little Pieces as fiction, but it was turned down? And wasn't it suggested to him that if the same story (because a lot of it was HIS story) was published as a memoir, it would sell a whole hell of a lot more units? This may be me talking out of my ass, but I can swear I read that somewhere. If any one of my four readers knows this not to be true, please let me know. I will edit accordingly.
Oprah Winfrey latched on to this book and added it to her Book Club. She put Frey in the chair opposite her's and interviewed him and talked about how inspiring his story is and everything...
So, this past week, when she had him on and claimed she was "duped" and that she thought all along that the events of this story were just too unbelievable to be true... I wanted to reach into the television and strangle her.
This entry is really about Oprah, I have to admit. All of my issues with her came out in that James Frey interview. It's funny, but I agree that he needs to be grilled, but by Oprah? Oh, man! I am not sure I can condone that. That's just too cruel. That's like having to attend a loyalty workshop run by Judas and Pontius Pilot.
Oprah called into Larry King to defend Frey. I'd love to see how that scene went at the Winfrey/Graham household:
O: Stead! I gotta call in. They're frying my boy!
S: Honey, why don't we see how this plays out. Don't make any rash decisions.
O: Bitch, what I said was rhetorical. If I wanted your opinion, I'd give it to you! (dialing the phone.)
S: Yes, dear.
Then she regretted it, and decided to work that shit out on national TV. She can do that. She owns national TV.
So, she put Frey in the chair opposite her's, and grilled him like a fresh salmon, instead of frying him like Larry King attempted to do, like Mary Karr did (and quite effectively. In fact, it should have been left at that.)
A few years ago, before I purchased an IPass, I was pulling into the line at the Aurora tollbooth after a hard day of dealing with precocious adolescents. I misjudged my brakes and bumped the car in front of me. The guy got out, of course. He asked if I was OK. I told him that I was, and I got out and checked for damage to his car. There was no damage. We were both very nice about the whole thing, at first. It was obviously my fault, and I acknowledged that. It was right then that he changed, and began to shout at me, telling me that next time I'd better pay attention to what I was doing, or there's no telling what might happen to me. I say, "OK, dude. Just get back into your car and go. There won't be a next time."
It's a very strange phenomenom that happens to human beings when they are in control of a situation where one person has made a mistake and they have a choice of whether to exploit that mistake or deal with it and then bury it. In my experience, I have seen that very weak and insecure people make the decision to exploit the mistake. Oprah made this weakness into an artform last week.
Her pursuit of Frey was unconscionable. Shetwisted the knife the Smoking Gun had rightly put into Frey's credibility, and ventured into territory that she had no business going into. Her insistance that the "Lilly" suicide had to be confirmed was terrible. This was obviously something that was close to Frey, and he was very obviously upset about talking about this particular detail in particular, but Oprah had to dig in and get him to give the details of how this woman took her own life.
Again, I completely agree that Frey needs to own up to those details he embellished in his memoir, but I don't agree that he needs to have his personal shit ridiculed on national TV. Her mode of questioning about the death of "Lilly" was unprofessional and just plain rude. Plus, she mocked him by sarcastically stressing "Memoir" at every chance she could. I know that I seem to be pulling at straws, but these are the things that stood out about her attack.
She surrounded herself with sycophants to push the fact that she was embarrased. It's funny that Frey made all the mistakes, but that hour of television was ALL about her. How many times did she mention how embarrassed she was? How he made her look bad... It is true, but when she says it, it somehow becomes cheap and insincere.
Maureen Dowd said that Oprah should "kick Frey's bony... non-fiction ass." What the hell does that exactly mean? I have a translation:
I am just so psyched that Oprah asked me to chime in on James, who? Lipton? Frey? Yes. Frey! Just think of all the reads I will get on Monday! Maybe I can finally finish that memoir! It'll be published for sure! Note to self: hire extra fact checkers!
Same goes for Joel Stein. Same exact fucking thing.
And, I liked their writing before this.
Frey looked genuinely remorseful, and maybe that's his M.O. But this is about Oprah, so it doesn't really matter.
I think if anyone lost credibility in my book, it's her. And I am sure that is going to go a long, long way.
Friday, December 09, 2005
George Fuckin' A. Romero: Part II
As many of you who know me well know, I loves me some zombies.
My obsession started in seventh grade with my best friend, Patrick O'Sullivan, after his older brother Danny caught a late-night broadcast of Night of the Living Dead on PBS (!!!! Right?). Dawn of the Dead came out not long after that, and we talked incessantly about how cool it would be to be zombie hunters.
I posted earlier this year about wanting very badly to see Romero's latest release Land of the Dead, but really being S.O.L. due to the facts that I have two infant daughters, and my wife outgrew her zombie phase many, many years ago (I believe after I insisted we rent Peter Jackson's Dead Alive for a date night). Thanks to Comcast and Karen's full Christmas-shopping-stopping-at-Appleby's-for-strawberry-daquiris schedule, I was able to rent Land of the Dead this past Saturday night.
I loved it, of course. It was classic George Romero with a budget.
If you do not love (or at least appreciate them) Romero's movies, there is nothing I can tell you here that will convince you otherwise. He is a director who knows his place in the world: he makes zombie films the way he wants to make them, with no pretension or compromise. They are entertaining and very darkly hilarious. So, see it! I highly recommend it!
On to my next order of business... In my current obsession with zombie films, I came across this (Just click on "watch" next to When Zombies Attack! It is amazing, seeing that it is on a very small budget, but the dedication of the filmakers is obvious throughout. So, watch, enjoy, and learn.
And, when you are finished with that, the home site has an add-on film that is just as funny as the mockumentary.
OK. This ends my yearly obsession with zombies... I think. I will leave you with this:
and return us to our regularly scheduled programming.
Merry Holidays, America!
My obsession started in seventh grade with my best friend, Patrick O'Sullivan, after his older brother Danny caught a late-night broadcast of Night of the Living Dead on PBS (!!!! Right?). Dawn of the Dead came out not long after that, and we talked incessantly about how cool it would be to be zombie hunters.
I posted earlier this year about wanting very badly to see Romero's latest release Land of the Dead, but really being S.O.L. due to the facts that I have two infant daughters, and my wife outgrew her zombie phase many, many years ago (I believe after I insisted we rent Peter Jackson's Dead Alive for a date night). Thanks to Comcast and Karen's full Christmas-shopping-stopping-at-Appleby's-for-strawberry-daquiris schedule, I was able to rent Land of the Dead this past Saturday night.
I loved it, of course. It was classic George Romero with a budget.
If you do not love (or at least appreciate them) Romero's movies, there is nothing I can tell you here that will convince you otherwise. He is a director who knows his place in the world: he makes zombie films the way he wants to make them, with no pretension or compromise. They are entertaining and very darkly hilarious. So, see it! I highly recommend it!
On to my next order of business... In my current obsession with zombie films, I came across this (Just click on "watch" next to When Zombies Attack! It is amazing, seeing that it is on a very small budget, but the dedication of the filmakers is obvious throughout. So, watch, enjoy, and learn.
And, when you are finished with that, the home site has an add-on film that is just as funny as the mockumentary.
OK. This ends my yearly obsession with zombies... I think. I will leave you with this:
and return us to our regularly scheduled programming.
Merry Holidays, America!
Monday, November 28, 2005
So... If Matt Stone and Trey Parker got a hold of you...
This is me, if I lived in South Park, Co. Go here to create what you'd look like.
FYI! I have altered my settings to accept comments from people who do not have a blogspot account.
Post the links to your creations in the comments for this post!
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Football Season is NOT Over
Rolling Stone Magazine recently posted excerpts from HS Thompson's final notes in which he writes:
No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt.
Well, the best thing to do is keep on keeping on.
Sports Illustated has predicted that the Carolina Panthers will win the Super Bowl, which their 23-20 loss to the Saints on Sunday may hint otherwise. Eh, but it's early - and, you can't really fault New Orleans for pulling out a win for their first game.
What a opening week, though. Surprises everywhere, except, of course, in Chicago, where complete suckiness pretty much reigns year round. Yes. I stopped watching after Bears offense was called on false start three times in a row, then Kyle Orton was sacked once the line regained their senses. Just pitiful.
Monday night started with a fight with fallout that reminded me of a high school playground scuffle. The Falcons Corner Back, Kevin Mathis and the Eagles Middle Line Backer Jeremiah Trotter were ejected because of a pre-game, mid-field fist fight. Later, they were interviewed by ESPN Sports Center, and Trotter said they were just having fun, talking a little smack, but he never threw any punches. Mathis maintains that nobody talks shit about the Falcons in their house. The video showed a fight. Y'all should grow up and start being role models like Mean Joe Green, Walter Payton and O.J... OK... Scratch that last one... of teams past!!! Come on! Kids need integrity more than ever now. Let's give it to them.
Terrell Owens has been griping for more money drawing criticism from Donovan McNabb as well as fans... But he went to Houston last week and devoted time and money to the people affected by Katrina. Rock on!
Anyway, there's my two cents between feedings and fights and other harrowing experiences of raising four kids under the age of seven.
See you next week.
No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt.
Well, the best thing to do is keep on keeping on.
Sports Illustated has predicted that the Carolina Panthers will win the Super Bowl, which their 23-20 loss to the Saints on Sunday may hint otherwise. Eh, but it's early - and, you can't really fault New Orleans for pulling out a win for their first game.
What a opening week, though. Surprises everywhere, except, of course, in Chicago, where complete suckiness pretty much reigns year round. Yes. I stopped watching after Bears offense was called on false start three times in a row, then Kyle Orton was sacked once the line regained their senses. Just pitiful.
Monday night started with a fight with fallout that reminded me of a high school playground scuffle. The Falcons Corner Back, Kevin Mathis and the Eagles Middle Line Backer Jeremiah Trotter were ejected because of a pre-game, mid-field fist fight. Later, they were interviewed by ESPN Sports Center, and Trotter said they were just having fun, talking a little smack, but he never threw any punches. Mathis maintains that nobody talks shit about the Falcons in their house. The video showed a fight. Y'all should grow up and start being role models like Mean Joe Green, Walter Payton and O.J... OK... Scratch that last one... of teams past!!! Come on! Kids need integrity more than ever now. Let's give it to them.
Terrell Owens has been griping for more money drawing criticism from Donovan McNabb as well as fans... But he went to Houston last week and devoted time and money to the people affected by Katrina. Rock on!
Anyway, there's my two cents between feedings and fights and other harrowing experiences of raising four kids under the age of seven.
See you next week.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Sean Penn in Iran
Back before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there were a group of high-profile American movie stars and media-hounds who announced that they were going to Iraq because as Don Wade, a talk show host on WLS, a conservative radio station in Chicago, said these people believed that the U.S. military would never forge a strike on a country being visited by so many important Americans. The were called traitors.
Now, I can't remember if they actually went... Maybe they overslept and missed their plane, or the lack of Starbucks at the Baghdad airport overshadowed their political cause. By any means, the actual war started, and we had Dixie Chicks to burn at the stake.
I was still doing my weekly local radio show then and me, being the liberal one (I guess; if we are talking in absolutes), defended the actors and others explaining that they were doing something, however convoluted and narcissistic, to affect the start of this war. Sure, they were probably prolonging the inevitable, but they were doing more than just debating the issues in some po-dunk radio station in the middle of an Illinois corn field.
This week, The San Francisco Chronicle is running a five-part story that Sean Penn wrote about his trip to Iran in June. I have read the first three parts, and... Well... He shouldn't quit his day job, but in his defense, I have to go back to my original argument. In this series he is doing what Crystal Blankenship discusses in her "Outrage" post: going beyond the normal American civilian call of duty to make an impact in our world, our reality. He went inside a culture that hates America and explored why they are the way they are.
It's been done throughout the war, I know, by people who are much more talented writers and filmographers, but because Sean Penn is who he is, there is a whole new section of SF Chronicle's readership who are learning something, who are becoming educated as to why some of the world feels the way it does about the U.S.
Now, what do we do not only with Sean Penn's information, but with all of the information?
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Found this in my in-box this morning: from Beyond The Grave!!!
Click on the image, then click on the image again. A small, framed picture with four blue arrows pointing at it should show up in the lower right-hand corner. If you haven't lost interest by now, click on that for a larger, readable image.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Dr.H.S. Thompson: Transcript of a Fax from Beyond the Grave
Dear Dan...
What are you, some kind of drooling primate?! This country is in enough shit without swine like you abusing his only creative outlet to indulge his repressed suburban fantasies!
You have no business dragging Hilary Duff into your perverted world. She's a dumb kid, but you can't fault her for that. She has an inhuman amount of money and follows bad advice from people who are draining her like a freshly tapped oil field. You are just taking your place in line. Take a cold shower. Guzzle some whiskey and quaaludes. Lock yourself in the bathroom for the weekend with a tub of olive oil and this week's Kohl's ad, but for Christ's sake, stop projecting this rabid depravity!
"What ever happened to that little girl..." My ass! Your concern is transparent. You and I both know that if given half-a-chance and fifteen minutes, you'd do things to that poor idiot that would render her with a limp and a life's-worth of regression therapy bills.
You are lucky that the only people who read your blog are lifeless number peddlers and tattooed, bespectacled lunatics. If someone with any kind of pull got ahold of this, you'd find yourself licking the boot sole of some mouth-breather prison guard in Joliet, IL. The hammer of justice looms, my friend, and it's casting its shadow over your laptop.
Sincerely,
Hunter
My response:
Dr. Thompson,
Have those wonderful nights reading Italian poetry in the hot tub at Owl Farm meant nothing to you?
Despondently Yours,
Daniel
What are you, some kind of drooling primate?! This country is in enough shit without swine like you abusing his only creative outlet to indulge his repressed suburban fantasies!
You have no business dragging Hilary Duff into your perverted world. She's a dumb kid, but you can't fault her for that. She has an inhuman amount of money and follows bad advice from people who are draining her like a freshly tapped oil field. You are just taking your place in line. Take a cold shower. Guzzle some whiskey and quaaludes. Lock yourself in the bathroom for the weekend with a tub of olive oil and this week's Kohl's ad, but for Christ's sake, stop projecting this rabid depravity!
"What ever happened to that little girl..." My ass! Your concern is transparent. You and I both know that if given half-a-chance and fifteen minutes, you'd do things to that poor idiot that would render her with a limp and a life's-worth of regression therapy bills.
You are lucky that the only people who read your blog are lifeless number peddlers and tattooed, bespectacled lunatics. If someone with any kind of pull got ahold of this, you'd find yourself licking the boot sole of some mouth-breather prison guard in Joliet, IL. The hammer of justice looms, my friend, and it's casting its shadow over your laptop.
Sincerely,
Hunter
My response:
Dr. Thompson,
Have those wonderful nights reading Italian poetry in the hot tub at Owl Farm meant nothing to you?
Despondently Yours,
Daniel
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Hilary!
What's with the heroin sheik, darlin'? Where did the little girl who talked to the cartoon version of herself go?
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
My Education; Our Education: One White Teacher’s Odyssey Through the Hip-Hop Quagmire
“The most promising thing about spilled milk is that it has ventured from its container.”
-William Upski Wimsatt Bomb the Suburbs
Originally, I intended this essay to be a sort of primer for white teachers who teach students in low socioeconomic areas. I wanted to point out where teachers are going wrong with students using my vast knowledge of teaching, hip-hop, and slam poetry. I admit; it is quite the pretentious undertaking. What the essay ended up being, once I realized how much shit I was talking when I started out, is a personal exploration of how I grew to be an “authentic” teacher (who just happens to like hip-hop and slam poetry) of poor(ish) African American, Latino, and white students on the east side of Aurora, IL. The terms “down” and “authentic” are winged about quite a bit throughout this exploration: “down” is used in tongue-in-cheek reference to my virtually non-existent status in hip hop and “authentic” is used to describe my observation of myself as a teacher of the students at East Aurora High School in light of the experiences I have had with hip hop and rap in particular. What did come out in the organization and the writing of this essay was the reality of two major observations I have made over the past fifteen years about teaching, hip-hop, and the relationship between white teachers and minority students: 1) White teachers who think they are “down” with the African-American culture will go to great lengths to display their “downness”. The teachers who are actually reaching their students often do not fit the description of “down” considered by the students. There is much more to be said about taking honest interest in one’s students and maintaining open communication than self-congratulating and posturing. Some examples will be explored in this essay. 2) Hip-hop, like Gospel music, Jazz, and Blues, was originally not intended for white, middle-class consumption, and many African American and Latino children of high-school age are quite bitter about this fact. This essay should be considered in the context of these observations.
The “Down” White Boy: The Formative Years
Whoever was in charge of PR knew what he or she was doing. The poster displayed six young black men, one deftly clutching a glock pistol, peering angrily at the viewer who, from the way the photo was taken, appears to be looking up into the faces of the executioners. It felt like an epiphanic moment in any John Hughes movie where the main character realizes that he is going to get his ass kicked; in fact, I believe I audibly gulped.
“What the hell is N.W.A.?”
“Niggas With Attitude.”
“They actually call themselves niggers?”
“No. Niggas, man! It’s different!”
“How, exactly, is it different?”
The poster was hung on the bedroom wall of my good friend Christopher Buccheri, a name one would normally not associate with gangsta rap, especially in 1988 Blue Island Chicago. In fact, Chris and I were proud to be self-appointed Ambassadors of Good Will between the then-intolerant burnouts/metal-heads and the theatre kids/punk rockers at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South[1], a racially-diverse, all-male Catholic high school on Chicago’s south side. It took us until our junior year to get relations between the two factions on solid ground, and, frankly, I thought that throwing a bombshell like N.W.A. into things would probably undo our hard work.
We adhered to the societal need to place ourselves into a certain category, and in the two years I had gone from freshman to junior, I had painstakingly fashioned myself into a burnout/ metal head by sewing on an Iron Maiden patch to my Gap denim jacket and adding various metal and punk band insignias with a thick, black Sharpie. Chris was very much a theatre kid/ punk rocker who dressed in black and listened to music like Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy and other emerging Goth bands who made music with heavily distorted guitars and nihilistic lyrics, quoting Camus and Neitzsche.
I enjoyed my comfort zone, and wasn’t so sure that there was a purpose to venture into an entire other American culture, especially one that seemed to clearly not want a couple of white boys from Chicago as a part of it. At the same time, I was quite intrigued by this alien culture that even the African American students at Quigley weren’t into yet. That this music was available to me to experience in the comfort of my own room without the uncomfortable burning and itching of actually venturing into the ghetto or even talking to any real black people was very appealing, and I entertained the idea of actually purchasing an album… for about fifteen seconds.
Jump cut to 1994. I was a student at the University of Illinois a Chicago, going for my Bachelor of Arts with focus on the teaching of high school English. I picked up a copy of William Upski Wimsatt’s Bomb the Suburbs because of the cool poster of the book’s cover hung in the window of the student bookstore. I recognized the name “Upski” because at the same time I was not buying N.W.A. albums, I was venturing out on the weekends on graffiti tagging missions with Scott Ferns, a little Polish kid in my class who spoke an entertaining patois of Mexican street English and African American hip-hop slang and went by the tag name, Rascal. I would see the tag, “Upski” on CTA busses and subway cars.
Upski’s book was an instant local success, exploring the white, mainly suburban, reaction to hip hop culture. According to Upski, white America basically flees from African American culture altogether or we embrace it to the point of embarrassment. In a piece he wrote for Source magazine called “We Use Words Like Mackadocious”, Wimsatt outs the American suburban wigger:
He quotes Sabrina Williams from Miami Beach, Fl., who criticizes American White youth: “They don’t understand the swagger, the way we walk, the way we talk. It comes from when you don’t have self-esteem, okay, you try to mask it… Being cool isn’t something you do. It’s something you feel. Here come these little white people who never had to live with that shit.” (18)
So, that pretty much verified my fear of outwardly showing my growing interest and love of hip hop. It had taken me five years, but I had begun purchasing rap, beginning with Public Enemy’s Welcome to the Terrordome and Fear of a Black Planet, then N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton. They were slaps in the face compared to the familiarity of Beastie Boys and House of Pain, groups I used to prime myself for the “real thing”[2]. It was easy to tell that they seemed like they were fronting or that they just knew they were out of place. They weren’t quite Vanilla Ice, but they were a far cry from the authenticity of Ice Cube or Eazy E.
I went backwards from there into more African centric artists like Boogie Down Productions, De La Soul, KRS-One, Eric B & Rakim, and more Public Enemy, who by this point had been somewhat played out. They lost some credibility for a while by touring with bands like Anthrax and U2: the hardcore rap fans saw them as selling out, and the “non-fans” saw them as pandering. I was able to score a backstage pass to a show they did with Anthrax and Primus at the Aragon Ballroom in 1991. A group of us, all long-haired white kids, stood waiting to meet the members of Anthrax, and the backstage door burst open. Flava Flav stood there, his gold teeth looking less shiny than on the videos, his alarm clock somehow smaller than on television. He was doubled over, laughing and pointing at us. Then he said, “Don’t nobody want to meet me?!” I replied, “Sure, Flava! Come on out!” He countered by laughing harder; he sighed, “Shiiiiiiit.” then turned around and went back through the door. I was wearing the brand new Public Enemy T-shirt I had purchased earlier that evening. It displayed the outline of a man between crosshairs. In the midst of Flava’s laughing and pointing, I felt I knew exactly at whom those crosshairs were aimed.
The Aurora Community School, Circa 1996 - 1998
-William Upski Wimsatt Bomb the Suburbs
Originally, I intended this essay to be a sort of primer for white teachers who teach students in low socioeconomic areas. I wanted to point out where teachers are going wrong with students using my vast knowledge of teaching, hip-hop, and slam poetry. I admit; it is quite the pretentious undertaking. What the essay ended up being, once I realized how much shit I was talking when I started out, is a personal exploration of how I grew to be an “authentic” teacher (who just happens to like hip-hop and slam poetry) of poor(ish) African American, Latino, and white students on the east side of Aurora, IL. The terms “down” and “authentic” are winged about quite a bit throughout this exploration: “down” is used in tongue-in-cheek reference to my virtually non-existent status in hip hop and “authentic” is used to describe my observation of myself as a teacher of the students at East Aurora High School in light of the experiences I have had with hip hop and rap in particular. What did come out in the organization and the writing of this essay was the reality of two major observations I have made over the past fifteen years about teaching, hip-hop, and the relationship between white teachers and minority students: 1) White teachers who think they are “down” with the African-American culture will go to great lengths to display their “downness”. The teachers who are actually reaching their students often do not fit the description of “down” considered by the students. There is much more to be said about taking honest interest in one’s students and maintaining open communication than self-congratulating and posturing. Some examples will be explored in this essay. 2) Hip-hop, like Gospel music, Jazz, and Blues, was originally not intended for white, middle-class consumption, and many African American and Latino children of high-school age are quite bitter about this fact. This essay should be considered in the context of these observations.
The “Down” White Boy: The Formative Years
Whoever was in charge of PR knew what he or she was doing. The poster displayed six young black men, one deftly clutching a glock pistol, peering angrily at the viewer who, from the way the photo was taken, appears to be looking up into the faces of the executioners. It felt like an epiphanic moment in any John Hughes movie where the main character realizes that he is going to get his ass kicked; in fact, I believe I audibly gulped.
“What the hell is N.W.A.?”
“Niggas With Attitude.”
“They actually call themselves niggers?”
“No. Niggas, man! It’s different!”
“How, exactly, is it different?”
The poster was hung on the bedroom wall of my good friend Christopher Buccheri, a name one would normally not associate with gangsta rap, especially in 1988 Blue Island Chicago. In fact, Chris and I were proud to be self-appointed Ambassadors of Good Will between the then-intolerant burnouts/metal-heads and the theatre kids/punk rockers at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South[1], a racially-diverse, all-male Catholic high school on Chicago’s south side. It took us until our junior year to get relations between the two factions on solid ground, and, frankly, I thought that throwing a bombshell like N.W.A. into things would probably undo our hard work.
We adhered to the societal need to place ourselves into a certain category, and in the two years I had gone from freshman to junior, I had painstakingly fashioned myself into a burnout/ metal head by sewing on an Iron Maiden patch to my Gap denim jacket and adding various metal and punk band insignias with a thick, black Sharpie. Chris was very much a theatre kid/ punk rocker who dressed in black and listened to music like Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy and other emerging Goth bands who made music with heavily distorted guitars and nihilistic lyrics, quoting Camus and Neitzsche.
I enjoyed my comfort zone, and wasn’t so sure that there was a purpose to venture into an entire other American culture, especially one that seemed to clearly not want a couple of white boys from Chicago as a part of it. At the same time, I was quite intrigued by this alien culture that even the African American students at Quigley weren’t into yet. That this music was available to me to experience in the comfort of my own room without the uncomfortable burning and itching of actually venturing into the ghetto or even talking to any real black people was very appealing, and I entertained the idea of actually purchasing an album… for about fifteen seconds.
Jump cut to 1994. I was a student at the University of Illinois a Chicago, going for my Bachelor of Arts with focus on the teaching of high school English. I picked up a copy of William Upski Wimsatt’s Bomb the Suburbs because of the cool poster of the book’s cover hung in the window of the student bookstore. I recognized the name “Upski” because at the same time I was not buying N.W.A. albums, I was venturing out on the weekends on graffiti tagging missions with Scott Ferns, a little Polish kid in my class who spoke an entertaining patois of Mexican street English and African American hip-hop slang and went by the tag name, Rascal. I would see the tag, “Upski” on CTA busses and subway cars.
Upski’s book was an instant local success, exploring the white, mainly suburban, reaction to hip hop culture. According to Upski, white America basically flees from African American culture altogether or we embrace it to the point of embarrassment. In a piece he wrote for Source magazine called “We Use Words Like Mackadocious”, Wimsatt outs the American suburban wigger:
One Saturday last summer, Josh and Eric, college students from Birchhead,
Georgia put on some Cross Colours and old school Adidas to wear to a
neighborhood which Josh described as “kind of scary… almost like a ghetto.” The
neighborhood was downtown Atlanta. Jaws stiffened, hats backward, they hit the
city hoping – for what they weren’t quite sure – to fit in, to earn respect, to
participate in a lifestyle they had admired for years on TV. Unsure what to do
with themselves, they shopped and ate lunch. They didn’t talk to anyone; they
barely even talked to each other. “It felt like the black people were laughing
at us,” they said later. (Suburbs, 18)
He quotes Sabrina Williams from Miami Beach, Fl., who criticizes American White youth: “They don’t understand the swagger, the way we walk, the way we talk. It comes from when you don’t have self-esteem, okay, you try to mask it… Being cool isn’t something you do. It’s something you feel. Here come these little white people who never had to live with that shit.” (18)
So, that pretty much verified my fear of outwardly showing my growing interest and love of hip hop. It had taken me five years, but I had begun purchasing rap, beginning with Public Enemy’s Welcome to the Terrordome and Fear of a Black Planet, then N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton. They were slaps in the face compared to the familiarity of Beastie Boys and House of Pain, groups I used to prime myself for the “real thing”[2]. It was easy to tell that they seemed like they were fronting or that they just knew they were out of place. They weren’t quite Vanilla Ice, but they were a far cry from the authenticity of Ice Cube or Eazy E.
I went backwards from there into more African centric artists like Boogie Down Productions, De La Soul, KRS-One, Eric B & Rakim, and more Public Enemy, who by this point had been somewhat played out. They lost some credibility for a while by touring with bands like Anthrax and U2: the hardcore rap fans saw them as selling out, and the “non-fans” saw them as pandering. I was able to score a backstage pass to a show they did with Anthrax and Primus at the Aragon Ballroom in 1991. A group of us, all long-haired white kids, stood waiting to meet the members of Anthrax, and the backstage door burst open. Flava Flav stood there, his gold teeth looking less shiny than on the videos, his alarm clock somehow smaller than on television. He was doubled over, laughing and pointing at us. Then he said, “Don’t nobody want to meet me?!” I replied, “Sure, Flava! Come on out!” He countered by laughing harder; he sighed, “Shiiiiiiit.” then turned around and went back through the door. I was wearing the brand new Public Enemy T-shirt I had purchased earlier that evening. It displayed the outline of a man between crosshairs. In the midst of Flava’s laughing and pointing, I felt I knew exactly at whom those crosshairs were aimed.
The Aurora Community School, Circa 1996 - 1998
I began my first teaching gig in November of 1996 at the Aurora Community School, which serviced the clientele of West Aurora High School, East Aurora High School, and Waubonsee Valley High School. The students were sent to ACS for reasons ranging from participating in gang-related activities (usually mob-action, or fights involving more than one person, which explained the high number of Latinas at ACS) to excessive tardies and every reason for extended suspension or expulsion in between. The student population was mainly Latino and African American, with white students in the definite minority. The teaching and administrative staff was all white and predominantly male. I was commuting daily from Aurora into Chicago to teach night classes of American literature and World literature to junior and senior students at Telshe Yeshiva, an ultra-orthodox Jewish boys’ high school.
My experience between these two schools was night and day. The students at the Yeshiva had a morbid fascination with the students I taught at ACS, fueled by the already limited access to news and media that the school and the religion placed on them. I was bombarded with questions like, “Do they smoke crack and engage in unnatural acts in the classroom? Are they smart? Do they read? Do they love anyone or anything?” These were questions that stemmed from fear and misrepresentation due to the sheltered lives these students were forced to live. In hindsight, I also played into their entertainment, telling them about the fight I witnessed during my first week at ACS between a boy and a girl (the girl won), or by the antics of a particularly unruly student. These incidents were really few and far between, standing out over weeks and weeks of monotonous non-communication and complacency both by the students at the Aurora Community School and by me.
Emotions were raw at ACS at the time I began teaching due to the impact that the murder of Tupac Shakur had on the culture of rap music. From when I began teaching in November until about early February, there was a tension among the students of the school that pervaded the normal gang-related fights and student-teacher disagreements. The students were lost; they were fumbling to attach a new central identity to the world they knew, and spent much of that time following local labels that produced talented artists, but whose message was more limited to street experience rather than the worldly knowledge and commentary that Tupac gave them in his music. I am convinced that Master P became so popular because of the death of Tupac Shakur, and because of that unfortunate opportunity, he actually made the attempt to expand his image from No Limit Soldier to doting father and legit rap artist.
In his book, Holler If You Hear Me, Michael Eric Dyson explores the more widespread impact that Tupac Shakur’s death had on the African American community:
Tupac’s death has functioned as a symbolic substitution for the youth he loved
and for the urban castaways for whom he spoke. He has been elevated to a
cultural demiurge, his death drawing attention to and elevating black youth
whose own lives of violence and misery were folded into the recesses of public
consciousness. His remarkable reappearance as a spiritual force – through
unreleased music, through films and videos, through a posthumous persona
[Makavelli] – means that his martyrdom might cast a big light on the people he
loved and cherished. It might also underscore the perilous circumstances that
claimed his life, even if to decry the destructive path he took, the
self-annihilating impulse he followed, and how contemporary youth recklessly
take up his mantle. (266)
The fact that the faculty was made up of mainly white males who really saw no relevance in getting to know the students and their interests other than the occasional half-hearted attempt to insert a media-popular phrase or well-known song lyric into a lesson, nor did we consider the direct correlation to the level of respect the student might have toward the teacher if a concerted effort were made on our part to really listen to the students about what they enjoyed listening to and reading. The students felt the loss of Tupac passionately and fiercely, and felt that they lacked the appropriate language to convey this pain to the staff of ACS. They kept it inside and acted out, and we stuck to using planning time to complain about the behavior of our students, often affecting an unfair and downright sorry interpretation of African-American dialect and slang in our stories of the students’ misbehavior.
During the first semester of my second year at the Aurora Community School, things began to simmer down climate-wise. I had quit teaching at the Yeshiva the previous year so I could devote my time to preparing relevant lessons for the students and improve on my own teaching approaches. It was a Thursday in November, and my sophomore class was working on finishing up Moby Dick by the time Thanksgiving break rolled around the following week. I was embarking on a mini-lecture on the significance of the line, “Save me, Coffin!” when I noticed two students engaged in a quiet, but heated rap battle. I tried to ignore them and continue, but I was losing the class two or three students at a time, their eyes quickly darting back and forth from the back of the room back to me, their heads tilted and necks strained slightly to catch the words exchanged.
This was the first time I had ever experienced freestyle rap in person, and until then I hadn’t believed that it actually existed. I didn’t believe that anyone, white, black, or Latino, could fire off meter and rhyme with a purpose at the drop of a hat. The students involved in this particular battle were… I have to apologize for forgetting the name of one of the students involved. His style was very much in the vein of the No Limit artists, and the school was riddled with those types of rappers, all talented in their own ways, some ripping through it like Bone Thugs, some carefully laying it out with strength like Tupac, but all saying essentially the same thing: either Vice Lords rule the streets, or I am the Big Balla – look at all my money, or I am the Big Pimp – look at all my women, or something about the housing development they were living in at the moment. So, the name of the student who represented that area of rap, as talented as he was, escapes me at this time. The other student opened my eyes to a whole other dimension of hip hop.
He was a light-skinned boy of Haitian descent with dreadlocks and piercing, wise, blue eyes. He went by the name, Dahji, but wouldn’t answer to it anymore on account he’d found Jesus the previous summer. It’s true. He literally would not answer you if you called him Dahji, only if you called him Thomas, his Christian name. This was tough to get down, because during the previous year, he would only answer to the name Dahji, when he wasn’t out on suspension for possession of marijuana or calling one of the faculty any number of foul, but creative, nicknames he had for us. This year, he was a changed man, and his actions proved that his words weren’t just words. He was earning A’s in most of his subjects, and he was very involved in the business department of ACS (which consisted of one teacher and two classes) because he wanted to go into business for himself when he graduated, maybe start a record label or open a church. Although, a combination of both would be an ideal situation in his eyes.
I stopped the both Thomas and the other student, noting the importance of Melville and the time constraints. They were disappointed but respectful, and they allowed me to continue on with my lecture. About five minutes later, Thomas raised his hand, and I called on him. He asked, “If [other-student-whose-name-I-can’t remember] and me, if we show you our notes, can we continue the battle at the break?”
How could I resist this proposition? I held them to the note-taking and added a few of my own rules at the break: No foul language, no degradation of women, no insulting the other rapper’s family, ethnicity, or other personal attributes. At the break, the class formed a circle of desks and Thomas and the other student stood in the center of the circle. A student began a simple beat on a desk, Thomas gracefully offered the opening “remarks” to the other student, who asked the student providing the beat to please slow it down. He spoke of the Eastwood Apartments, a development where many of the black students lived, which also housed many of the gang members and drug dealers from the area. He spoke of having an “E” emblazoned on his chest, showing his allegiance to the apartments, to the Game. Thomas’s turn came; he motioned for the student to speed up the beat. “You’re proud of that “E” on your chest? Well, I’m proud of the cross on mine. I’m blessed!” No one heard the following rhyme because the crowd reaction was so strong, so electric, that for a full minute nothing could be heard over the awe-inspired cheering. The other student reacted to Thomas’s verbal assault as if he were taking a physical beating, but loving -no, savoring- every blow. With every competed rhyme, the student clutched his heart, first dropping to one knee, then the other. When Thomas had finished his turn, the student was lying on his back on the floor moaning and grinning. He then got up, hugged Thomas, and thanked him for kicking his butt.
The popularity of the break-time battles grew, and soon all 110 students of ACS were crammed into my classroom from 10:00AM to 10:20AM every morning, mostly watching Thomas take on any fool who challenged him. It was inspiring. It rejuvenated my desire to teach.
The break-time rap battles inspired many discussions between Thomas and me. One in particular had to do with the fact that both hip-hop and education require that we play some sort of game, usually involving a truth or irony behind the words spoken in a song or in a lesson. The irony in rap music follows what James Baldwin used to describe the character of Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, to some extent. Baldwin coined the term “exploitation of the nigger” (Notes of A Native Son, 43) to explain a situation involving a black character playing into a stereotype or fear generated by the white concept of the black race, usually the black male. The concept is illustrated in the following excerpt from N.W.A.’s song, “100 Miles and Runnin’”:
MC Ren, I hold the gun and
You want me to kill a mutherfucker and it's done
in.Since I'm stereotyped to kill and destruct -
Is one of the main reasons
I don't give a fuck.
Thomas explained that much of what white teachers say to black and Latino students carries some of the same irony Baldwin describes, that a lecture touting the virtues of education to a room full of students who have been suspended indefinitely or expelled from their home high school needs some kind of context to make it valuable and authentic to the students. The teachers, as well as the students, know that some of the rhetoric spoken in the classroom by both parties involved is part of the system of education rather than the experience of actual give-and-take learning taking place. Thomas suggested that if the teachers just acknowledge that what is taking place during these instances is part of the game, or the paradox of rhetoric as I call it, then the students will be more apt to take the teacher seriously. For example, many high school teachers will teach a part of their curriculum strictly to prepare the students to take a state test or a college aptitude test like the SAT or the ACT, and teach in a completely different way with completely different materials for student experiences that many teachers would describe as “real” learning. The tests are believed (proven and implied) to have direct correlation to the positions of employment that the students can achieve upon graduation. In the book, Other People’s Children, Lisa Delpit calls this “the culture of power” (24) for which there is a specific lexicon for those in the know. Thomas felt that if teachers made students, especially African American and Latino ones, privy to that information, then the teacher would be able to make an impact on all levels earlier on in the his or her relationship with those students. I argued that the students can tell the difference between a lesson that is specifically being taught “to the test” and one that the teacher believes will contribute to “real” learning. Thomas maintained that isn’t the point; the moment the teacher acknowledges that all the students are playing the same game on the same level, but at the same time acknowledges that the African American and Latino students are still challenged even with this information - this validation, he or she will have gained credence with those students.
The students who took part in the battles were mainly African American. The Latino students who challenged them were treated with respect but were still eyed with a certain amount of suspicion by both the audience and the African American opponent, while the white participants were hardly tolerated. It was an unwritten rule made clear to me by Thomas in one of our more heated discussions. I asked point blank, “Is there a place in hip hop for Whitey, or is it really just a Black thing that we don’t understand?” He laughed and responded, “When it all boils down to it, no. You don’t know the suffering that we do, or even Mexican people for that matter. It’s your world, Mr. Ridges, and it has been for as long as you known.” He must have observed the dejected look on my face because he added, “It doesn’t mean you ain’t still invited to the party.”
In his book, The Last Black Mecca: Hip-Hop, Robert Scoop Jackson writes that hip-hop and rap was never meant for white, middle-class Americans:
Rap, rap music, and hip-hop are all part of the new American culture. What has
to be remembered is that they are all created by young Black minds for young
Black people… Rap is the gift this Black generation is giving. And even though
it sometimes gets out-of-hand, it is a very special and honorable gift. And
above and beyond anything else (and I don’t care how you want to look at it) rap
has done two major things: 1) ignited the re-emergence of Malcolm X, and 2) got
Martin Luther King a holiday in Arizona (4)
Jackson even goes as far to say that White American industry has wrestled the essence of hip hop away from the “true” artists and has garnered the loyalty of the black audience. A sentiment with which Wimsatt firmly agrees:
…the white audience doesn’t just consume rap, it shapes rap also. Rappers and
record labels aren’t stupid. They know who’s listening and the music gets
tailored to the audience.
Increasingly, rappers address their white audience,
either directly by accommodating our perceived tastes, targeting us for
education/insult, or indirectly, by shunning the white audience, retreating into
blacker, realer, more hardcore stances – all the more titillating for their
inaccessibility. (18 -19)
There is an upside to the infiltration of the hip hop by clueless white suburbanites all over the country according to Wimsatt. This misguided interest and posturing, in many cases, shows the first step in white America trying to understand the black experience. It is a very tricky situation. The white person has to step out of his or her comfort zone and consider the full life, the full experience, of the black person. No more posturing is needed. Really what needs to happen is for us to just shut up and listen.
Rachel Scherr Salgado describes knowledge of this nature as being “finally about experiencing the other in the self.” (Mixing It Up, 40) Taking her approach to James Baldwin and applying it to hip hop culture places much greater importance on it than the culture just being there for our entertainment. It is something that should seep into our psyche, our souls.
Like the black trying to make it in white America, we face a catch 22: We
cannot help blacks without undercutting their self-determination; we cannot be
cool without encroaching on their cultural space; we cannot take risks without
exercising our privilege to take risks; we cannot integrate without invading; we
cannot communicate on black terms without patronizing.Faced with these choices, we need not become paralyzed. Instead we may follow the example of blacks who cross-over in the opposite direction: develop a double consciousness. We must take the risks necessary to do right, yet we must remain sober in recognizing that, unlike blacks trying to make it in white America, our struggle is not the center of importance. (Wimsatt, 31)
And that is where the quagmire lies. As much as we want to make it about us, it is not important that black rappers can talk shit about Whitey, nor is it important that black comedians can make fun of white people. That is a veneer of power, and that knowledge is just below the conscience of white America. It’s just something else to talk about. We should just shut up and listen for a while.
Eminem, Kanye West, and the American Obsession with the Self
In 1998, I moved to East Aurora High School and became the faculty advisor for the school literary magazine. I held weekly meetings, which turned into weekly impromptu slam poetry sessions/ cultural round-table discussions. I was going to solve the problems of the world with a crew of Marilyn Manson fans and neo-underground-hip-hop pioneers. A Latino graffiti artist/home-studio record producer/rapper turned me onto the artists from the Anticon record label, an outfit out of Oakland, California that houses mainly white and Latino talent. I was immediately drawn to them. The tracks were sarcastic, philosophical, angry and forlorn, and they sounded great. The music on these albums moved away from the Cause[3]: addressing African American struggle in America. Instead, it focuses on a new American obsession: the self. Many of the songs are about how the state of the world affects the artist himself, not how the artist can change the world, like what Public Enemy and Tupac proposed in their music.
Then came Eminem, who intertwined Jerry Springer-type “reality” television with neo-hip-hop introspection. Eminem took off at East Aurora High School among every racial and socioeconomic group because he was brash, brazen, and told it like it was. He was the first white rapper who really made the cross-over, and it was simply because he exercised the double-conscience that Rachel Scherr Salgado and Billy Wimsatt mentioned. According to Eminem, we’re all trailer trash. Why don’t we embrace that? Who cares? Fuck you, and so on. It didn’t hurt that he was good looking and immensely talented, and that he would beat anyone to the punch when it came to making fun of himself.
Kanye West, besides being the source of Greg Kot’s year-long hard-on in 2004, expanded the focus of hip hop to a more respectable level with his album The College Dropout. West was a producer of rap acts like Jay Z and Talib Kweli and had accrued his fortune and fame before he even set out to make his own album. His songs poke fun at himself and at the genre of rap and hip hop for the focus on collecting material proof of one’s success. He unabashedly criticizes himself and, at the same time touts the glory of being famous and making money and gaining notoriety in America as a black entrepreneur. In the song, “All Falls Down”, West seems to make fun of himself and criticize the hip hop culture in one fell swoop:
Man I promise,
I'm so self conscious
That's why you always see me with at least one of my watches
Rollies and Pasha's done drove me crazy
I can't even pronounce nothing, pass that versace!
Then I spent 400 bucks on this
Just to be like nigga you ain't up on this!
And I can't even go to the grocery store
Without some ones thats clean and a shirt with a team
It seems we living the american dream
But the people highest up got the lowest self esteem
The prettiest people do the ugliest things
For the road to riches and diamond rings
We shine because they hate us, floss cause they degrade us
We trying to buy back our 40 acres
And for that paper, look how low we a'stoop
Even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coop/coupe
Disclaimer: What Does This Mean for the Teachers?This essay is glaring proof that I am not immune to my own observations. Many of my stories, while serving the purpose of illustrating my growing as a teacher, subtly accentuate my “downness” with my African American and Latino students. I don’t, however, see myself as part of the problem. I am not so much a poser as I am the obvious outsider, comfortable with my squareness, but always looking to fit in somewhere else in society, maybe crack the code of another clique, maybe finally achieve that double-consciousness described by Salgado and Wimsatt.
Last year, an experienced special education teacher approached me in the teachers’ lounge and asked me if she should see the movie 8 Mile in order to understand her students better. My first reaction was, why 8 Mile and not Boyz N the Hood or Menace II Society, or Hoop Dreams for that matter? Was it just that the thought of our students’ culture is repugnant enough, and that a white rapper might make the experience a little more palatable? It was probably more innocent than that; Eminem was relevant in 2004; 8 Mile was the talk of the school; it had Kim Basinger! Remember her? She was in that movie with Robert Redford!
I replied, “Just talk to your students. They’ll help you understand.”
I lied to her to an extent, as I lied about myself throughout this essay. OK, maybe it wasn’t a full-fledged lie, but it was misrepresentation of fact. There is a culture of us-and-them perpetuated by the teachers at East Aurora High School that a few surface conversations will not penetrate, but I had copies to make, and that just seemed too deep a conversation to have eight minutes before the bell.
Maybe if we all just shut up, sit still, and really listen to each other… Maybe then something will happen.
[1] Quigley South was underhandedly sold in 1989 by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin to St. Rita High School, which was my first understanding of the Catholic Church as one of the largest land-owning businesses in the world.
[2] This is not to say that the Beastie Boys did not eventually evolve into real hip hop; however, until this point in the story, License to Ill is my only point of reference, and that is just rather sad.
[3] “This is prime concern, the frame of reference; it is not to be confused with a devotion to Humanity which is too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause; and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.” (Baldwin, 15)
Works Cited
Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son. Beacon Press. Boston. 1984
Delpit, Lisa. Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. The New Press. New
York. 1986
Dyson, Michael Eric. Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur. Basic Books. New
York. 2001
Jackson, Robert Scoop. The Last Black Mecca: Hip-Hop. O.S.P. Research Associates. Chicago.
1994
MacPherson, James. “Junior and John Doe”. Lure and Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity, and the Ambivalence of Assimilation. Ed. Gerald Early. Penguin Press. New York. 1993
Salgado, Rachel Scherr. “Misceg-narrations” Mixing It Up: Multiracial Subjects. Ed. SanSan
Kwan and Kenneth Speirs. University of Texas Press. Austin. 2004
Wimsatt, William Upski. Bomb the Suburbs. Subway and Elevated Press. Chicago. 1994
Websites of Interest
Afrika Bambaataa – pioneer of modern hip hop: http://www.zulunation.com/afrika.html
Michael Eric Dyson: http://www.michaelericdyson.com/
Tim Wise: http://www.timwise.org/
William Upski Wimsatt Bomb The Suburbs http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-887128-44-5
Adisa Banjoko's 12 Step Program for Hip Hop http://mkhd.blogspot.com/2005/07/adisa-banjokos-12-step-program-for-hip.html
Adisa Banjoko's 12 Step Program for Hip Hop
12 Point Program for Hip Hop's Revolutionary Rebirth By: Adisa Banjoko bishop@lyricalswords.com
Right about now, there is a resurgence of conciousness in Hip Hop. It reminds me of what was once known as "The Golden Age of Hip Hop". This new conciousness is evidenced in the rise of Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, Paris, Zion I, Common, Mystic, Mos Def, Encore, Shamako Noble, Immortal Technique, the new tracks by MC Ren, and others. This is a beautiful thing to watch, and something that makes me proud to see. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense used to have a ten point program to rebuild the Black community. It was something to help keep the Black community focused how freedom was to be achieved. Unfortunately, the masses did not listen to them as well as they should have and many people lost out due a lack of follow though.This is a twelve point program I have constructed in hope of rejuvenating the Hip Hop community and industry across the board. I believe without fail that if these ideas are put into action that Hip Hop will gain a higher status in the minds of those who love it as well as in the hearts of those who hate it. This list can be used by anybody (regardless of race, faith, or culture) who is an MC/rapper. But for those that TRY to be conscious, I feel these things are a must. Big props to Scape Martinez for helping me refine this (eventhogh we disagree with some points).
1. Stop the cursing. If you are going to reach the people, you need to be refined lyrically. You will have one up on radio industry who try to ignore you.You must also make yourself loved by the parents of the children who love Hip Hop. Keeping it clean on wax is an easy way to gain an upper hand in the streets and in the industry at the same time. Plus you don't have to always make clean versions of everything- so it saves you money. In the movie Malcolm X's original mentor says that a man curses because he does not have the tools to tell you whats really on his mind. So chill out and tell us whats on your mind. Gangstarr's "Step Into the Arena" is a perfect example of how you can stay REAL and not curse.
2. Stop using the word "nigga". The word "nigger/nigga" was a lyrical tool of empowerment for the Hip Hop movement during the late 80's and early 90's. It came at a time when Black people needed to counter the hateful words being put upon them for so long. Now, the word has indeed been dilluted in it's power (it does not hurt most Black people to be called that name anymore). However, it also lost it's painful historical relevence. We need to remind people of where the word came from, so it is never taken lightly. If you are unclear on the history of it, go read "100 Years of Lynchings" by Ralph Ginzburg.
3. Read. The more you know, the more you can rap about. Read about the history of your people as well as the histories and cultures of others. Nobody is asking you to become Nerdball McGee- but you should open a book. Choose a topic and go learn something you did nto know the day before. Then bring that into Hip Hop. Ice Cube, KRS ONE and Tupac Shakur were arguably at their best when they were reading.
4. Rap About YOUR Struggle. MC's and rappers who are remembered, are story tellers. Slick Rick, Ice Cube, Tupac and Rakim are able to bring you into their world and allow you to see from behind their eyes. This should be your goal as an MC. Tell us about your fam, your area, your personal journey in a way that no one else can tell it. If you cannot do that, you will certainly fail to impress and inspire. Tell us about your city. Nobody cared about the Queens, Compton, or Vallejo until MC Shan, Eazy E, and E-40 told the world stories about where they came from.
5. Stop following trends, create them. The rap industry tries to create cookie cutter rappers now.They all come complete with pimp cups, loc's butt naked women and saggy pants. That has it's place. But we need more people pushing the lyrical envelope.Brothers and sisters don't try to flow with originality anymore. They just try to copy a carbon copy. Do not be afraid to find out who you are and challenge the trends across the board. N.W.A., Biggie Smalls, Beastie Boys, Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Public Enemy, Kwame, Paris, De La Soul, Queen Latifah, and Eminem (YES, I said EMINEM) all take creative chances musically and lyrically. From your look to your flow, be original in your life and on wax.
6. Respect Women. This is a subject that cannot be discussed too much. We need to stop using the word bitch and hoe (I'm talking to myself as well as y'all). We need to stop objectifying all women. By undermining them, we undermine the cornerstone of all civilization. This is a serious thing. You can still make a dope jam and show respect to the women.Remember that every "hoe" and "bitch" is someone elses sister, daughter, mother- maybe even yours. So clean yourself up. I'm not asking you to take estrogen shots, watch Oprah 24/7 and wear a wig. Just show some respect.
7. Don't forget to rock the party. This is a major problem in Hip Hop. Most of the MC's who try to be concious. They get so caught up in their mission that they forget to have fun. If all you do is spit politics and stuff, people never get to see you shine creatively. Show the people you have skills to rock the party, then give them something to take home.
8. Learn an instrument. Since it's inception Hip Hop has gotten far by sampling. The record industry has come down hard on us at times for doing it. Sampling has served it's purpose, but it is time to show the world our full creativity. Learn an instrument for yourself. If you do, you will gain a new respect for those you sample and you'll get new insights on how to make music for yourself.
9, . Listen all kinds of music from the past. This is crucial. Part of the reason Hip Hop is so stale is because Hip Hop only listens to Hip Hop, nowdays.Chuck D, Mix Master Mike, DJ QBERT, KRS ONE, P Ditty Poor Righteous Teachers, Premier, Jungle Brothers, Marly Marl, Timbaland, DJ Quick, Dr. Dre all listen to other forms of music. You should slso read the biographies of some of these artists as well (something I'm about to get into). They listen to Jazz, Reggae, Blues, Rock, Heavy Metal, Symphony, Salsa, Zen flutes etc.This is a BIG part of what makes them great. Now, go be great!!!
10. Acknowledge the beauty of the other Hip Hop elements. This is a HUGE problem. Sometimes I think it is talked about too much. But the bottom line is that if you don't have a full appreciation for graf writing, b-boy'ing, popping, locking, and turntablism you are missing a lot of tools that you can both learn from and incporporate into your shows. A lot of people confuse appreciation of these elements with being a hippy or dealing with things that are not "real".Nothing could be farther from the truth. Don't sleep on that.
11. Choose a Cause. Once you know who you are, it is important that you ask yourself "What will I champion in Hip Hop besides my lyrics"? You care about education? Poverty issues? are you just a party MC?Are you gonna champion your culture? Politics? Child abuse? Domestic violence? WHAT?!?!? Choose a cause then make sure you mention it from time to time. NOT ON EVERY SONG- becuase you will turn people off.
12. Never forget the poor. This music is from them, for them, forever. Knowing that fact always, IS KEEPING IT REAL.
Adisa Banjoko is author of "Lyrical Swords Vol. 1: Hip Hop and Politics in the Mix", available atwww.lyricalswords.com.
====="It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself." - Muhammad Ali
wwww.lyricalswords.blogspot.com__________________________
______________________________________________Adisa
Banjoko aka "The Bishop"1304 S. Winchester Blvd. # 441San Jose, CA 95128
Right about now, there is a resurgence of conciousness in Hip Hop. It reminds me of what was once known as "The Golden Age of Hip Hop". This new conciousness is evidenced in the rise of Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, Paris, Zion I, Common, Mystic, Mos Def, Encore, Shamako Noble, Immortal Technique, the new tracks by MC Ren, and others. This is a beautiful thing to watch, and something that makes me proud to see. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense used to have a ten point program to rebuild the Black community. It was something to help keep the Black community focused how freedom was to be achieved. Unfortunately, the masses did not listen to them as well as they should have and many people lost out due a lack of follow though.This is a twelve point program I have constructed in hope of rejuvenating the Hip Hop community and industry across the board. I believe without fail that if these ideas are put into action that Hip Hop will gain a higher status in the minds of those who love it as well as in the hearts of those who hate it. This list can be used by anybody (regardless of race, faith, or culture) who is an MC/rapper. But for those that TRY to be conscious, I feel these things are a must. Big props to Scape Martinez for helping me refine this (eventhogh we disagree with some points).
1. Stop the cursing. If you are going to reach the people, you need to be refined lyrically. You will have one up on radio industry who try to ignore you.You must also make yourself loved by the parents of the children who love Hip Hop. Keeping it clean on wax is an easy way to gain an upper hand in the streets and in the industry at the same time. Plus you don't have to always make clean versions of everything- so it saves you money. In the movie Malcolm X's original mentor says that a man curses because he does not have the tools to tell you whats really on his mind. So chill out and tell us whats on your mind. Gangstarr's "Step Into the Arena" is a perfect example of how you can stay REAL and not curse.
2. Stop using the word "nigga". The word "nigger/nigga" was a lyrical tool of empowerment for the Hip Hop movement during the late 80's and early 90's. It came at a time when Black people needed to counter the hateful words being put upon them for so long. Now, the word has indeed been dilluted in it's power (it does not hurt most Black people to be called that name anymore). However, it also lost it's painful historical relevence. We need to remind people of where the word came from, so it is never taken lightly. If you are unclear on the history of it, go read "100 Years of Lynchings" by Ralph Ginzburg.
3. Read. The more you know, the more you can rap about. Read about the history of your people as well as the histories and cultures of others. Nobody is asking you to become Nerdball McGee- but you should open a book. Choose a topic and go learn something you did nto know the day before. Then bring that into Hip Hop. Ice Cube, KRS ONE and Tupac Shakur were arguably at their best when they were reading.
4. Rap About YOUR Struggle. MC's and rappers who are remembered, are story tellers. Slick Rick, Ice Cube, Tupac and Rakim are able to bring you into their world and allow you to see from behind their eyes. This should be your goal as an MC. Tell us about your fam, your area, your personal journey in a way that no one else can tell it. If you cannot do that, you will certainly fail to impress and inspire. Tell us about your city. Nobody cared about the Queens, Compton, or Vallejo until MC Shan, Eazy E, and E-40 told the world stories about where they came from.
5. Stop following trends, create them. The rap industry tries to create cookie cutter rappers now.They all come complete with pimp cups, loc's butt naked women and saggy pants. That has it's place. But we need more people pushing the lyrical envelope.Brothers and sisters don't try to flow with originality anymore. They just try to copy a carbon copy. Do not be afraid to find out who you are and challenge the trends across the board. N.W.A., Biggie Smalls, Beastie Boys, Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Public Enemy, Kwame, Paris, De La Soul, Queen Latifah, and Eminem (YES, I said EMINEM) all take creative chances musically and lyrically. From your look to your flow, be original in your life and on wax.
6. Respect Women. This is a subject that cannot be discussed too much. We need to stop using the word bitch and hoe (I'm talking to myself as well as y'all). We need to stop objectifying all women. By undermining them, we undermine the cornerstone of all civilization. This is a serious thing. You can still make a dope jam and show respect to the women.Remember that every "hoe" and "bitch" is someone elses sister, daughter, mother- maybe even yours. So clean yourself up. I'm not asking you to take estrogen shots, watch Oprah 24/7 and wear a wig. Just show some respect.
7. Don't forget to rock the party. This is a major problem in Hip Hop. Most of the MC's who try to be concious. They get so caught up in their mission that they forget to have fun. If all you do is spit politics and stuff, people never get to see you shine creatively. Show the people you have skills to rock the party, then give them something to take home.
8. Learn an instrument. Since it's inception Hip Hop has gotten far by sampling. The record industry has come down hard on us at times for doing it. Sampling has served it's purpose, but it is time to show the world our full creativity. Learn an instrument for yourself. If you do, you will gain a new respect for those you sample and you'll get new insights on how to make music for yourself.
9, . Listen all kinds of music from the past. This is crucial. Part of the reason Hip Hop is so stale is because Hip Hop only listens to Hip Hop, nowdays.Chuck D, Mix Master Mike, DJ QBERT, KRS ONE, P Ditty Poor Righteous Teachers, Premier, Jungle Brothers, Marly Marl, Timbaland, DJ Quick, Dr. Dre all listen to other forms of music. You should slso read the biographies of some of these artists as well (something I'm about to get into). They listen to Jazz, Reggae, Blues, Rock, Heavy Metal, Symphony, Salsa, Zen flutes etc.This is a BIG part of what makes them great. Now, go be great!!!
10. Acknowledge the beauty of the other Hip Hop elements. This is a HUGE problem. Sometimes I think it is talked about too much. But the bottom line is that if you don't have a full appreciation for graf writing, b-boy'ing, popping, locking, and turntablism you are missing a lot of tools that you can both learn from and incporporate into your shows. A lot of people confuse appreciation of these elements with being a hippy or dealing with things that are not "real".Nothing could be farther from the truth. Don't sleep on that.
11. Choose a Cause. Once you know who you are, it is important that you ask yourself "What will I champion in Hip Hop besides my lyrics"? You care about education? Poverty issues? are you just a party MC?Are you gonna champion your culture? Politics? Child abuse? Domestic violence? WHAT?!?!? Choose a cause then make sure you mention it from time to time. NOT ON EVERY SONG- becuase you will turn people off.
12. Never forget the poor. This music is from them, for them, forever. Knowing that fact always, IS KEEPING IT REAL.
Adisa Banjoko is author of "Lyrical Swords Vol. 1: Hip Hop and Politics in the Mix", available atwww.lyricalswords.com.
====="It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself." - Muhammad Ali
wwww.lyricalswords.blogspot.com__________________________
______________________________________________Adisa
Banjoko aka "The Bishop"1304 S. Winchester Blvd. # 441San Jose, CA 95128
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