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Now Playing on HT's iPod
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- "No Matter What They Say" by Lil Kim
- "In The End" by Linkin Park
- "Matter of Time" by Kem
- "You Knew I Couldn't Last" by Morrisey
- "Golden" by Jill Scott
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9/14/04 5:15 AM: "Lasting happiness can only happen through money. Fishism." -- Richard Fish
YES, YES, I AM HEEM: The photo on the front page has enticed some people here. Wait for it, wait for it ... all things come in time, especially for "Even Stevens."
THE CROSSOVER: I appear to be the only person of conscience who things Meth and Red on Fox is worth watching ... and this week's "neighborhood watch" episode gave me even more reason to believe so. Method and "Neighbor Lady" turn vigilante, homaging action films and generally making me double over with laughter. Their hidden attraction to each other both amused and made me uncomfortable. The familiarity between Meth and Red, Redman's ongoing affair with neighbor Mrs. Chu ... I can't describe how amusing I find this show. I get the feeling it's doomed, due to reports of unhappiness behind and in front of the camera, so I hope it comes on DVD one day.
MORE TUBE, LESS BOOB:
Speaking of, Scrubs is back, and Heather Graham is a regular guest star for a bit. I was formerly of the opinion that Heather Graham was the most boring actress in the entire world, and that the entire scene would just die the second she walks on camera. However, on Scubs this week, she was perfect in her interactions with the rest of the cast, interesting and bubbly and all the things she wasn't in that Austin Powers movie or Bowfinger. Maybe she's made for the small screen, maybe the writing is better for her, maybe she's grown as an actress. All I know is it took Scrubs to make Heather Graham not make me fall asleep, and that's quite an accomplishment.
Also, The Bernie Mac Show is back, and it hasn't lost a step. When Bernie installed cameras everywhere in the house (and note: they don't get uninstalled, room for more fun later in the season), I was like, "Excellent!" Snoop Dogg was a great and understated guest star, Wanda managed not to irritate me (she's the most irksome character in prime time for me, a sister who's perfect on paper and endlessly wack in almost everything she really does), and the kids got a good balance of time. My VCR is set for this.
A good friend was kind enough to tape six hours of the "Chunk of Monk" marathon on USA, and man, that show just gets better and better. Tony Shalhoub is helming a really amazIng, nuanced, textured show with amazing character and plotting. Not quite enough for me to get cable, but a sure sign I am missing something. The episode with his brother was actually touching and I am very sorry I missed the season finale where he gets "cured."
IDLE HANDS: My Friday night show at Mel's was cancelled amidst a flurry of activity at my company, Hollywood Karaoke. My co-worker Dana decided to get her own set of equipment and stop using the company's stuff at her Prince of Whales gig, and plans to stop doing Mel's since they're causing a big stink. This could mean $1000 in revenues per month lost, and I'm gigless. Chalenging times.
However, Star Light Karaoke's Tony DeFazio is looking at starting me in Torrance at some places, which is a much more fertile territory for karaoke it seems. I went to check out one of the venues this Friday, and liked the crowd (very forgiving and friendly) and the system (very smart and well put together). We'll see how it goes, as it makes things a bit tight right now.
MUSIC MAN: I finally finished the lyrics on "Criminal Thunder," which I'll be re-recording (now I've learned a lot of key things about recording on my PowerBook, like "turn off the internal mic, moron") soon. I am poised to get "The Pie Song" done and getting some new poetry written (expect postings soon). I also started trading editing tips with an elder poet named C. Rhune, so I'm gonna clean up some of the short fiction as well. This is all good.
FOUR COLOR FURY: I got an email from a bogus address, which questioned my reviewing over at UGO ...
What's the deal with your read/buy piles. You end up reviewing trash (I know its trash because you say so in your reviews) and leave out a lot of good titles. You never seem to review Ultimate Spiderman, any Steve Niles titles, the Goon, anything from Avatar, any of Sam Kieth's new stuff(Scratch, OJO), the list goes on. You are always down about the comics you do read, but it seems like you're ignoreing a lot of good stuff. If you don't like Batman/Catwoman don't read it. I'm waiting to hear reviews of comics you did like instead of the usual dismissal of the weeks releases.
Well.
First of all, when I started the Buy Pile, I started doing it just to keep writing something on a regular basis. I'd done comic reviews for NPO and SpinnerRack (both dead now), and found it a good exercise to keep my brain going. When Brian Jacks from UGO talked to me about moving the reviews to that site, he said I should just keep doing what I'm doing, and asked for no changes. He doesn't pick what I cover, and he doesn't question it either. I cover the books that pique my interest, that I have some knowledge of, and that I think I have a chance at reviewing well. I don't review, say, Monolith or Bite Cllub because -- despite the fact I can see they're well done books from a craft standpoint -- they're so far afield from being my cup of tea, I know better than to do them or me a disservice by trying to review them. Ditto Strangers in Paradise (a favorite of my ex-wife, more on that soon), Sword of Dracula and scores of others. You don't like what I review, I'm sure somebody will be reviewing what you're interested in. But unless you affect the money I make or my real life (or you're gonna mail me copies of stuff to read and save me the drama of picking things out of the noise, as Penny Register from Bloodstream did), you can push off, honestly.
VOTE OR DIE: I first met Image Comics' Eric Stephenson when we both worked at NextPlanetOver, and we got along just swell. Then, we started to learn something about each other -- whenever we conversed via email, we'd invariably end up arguing, and whenever we talked in person, it never happened. Damndest thing. So recently, I was trading emails with him finding out that my comics proposal to Image is essentially doomed, since the publisher and my artist have some bad blood. That was no real problem, and good to know with some finality. Anyway, Eric emails me back to encourage me to vote in the November election. Eric knows I don't vote, and we've actually had some discussions on why. But it is so important, he said, that this time I had to overlook all that.
He asked me if it's good for Bush to stay in office, then said, "t this point, saying you won't vote for WHATEVER reason is like saying you'd prefer to have Hitler in power than take part in the political process. And, yes, I'm aware it's a flawed process, but refusing to vote solves nothing and just aids the people who benefit from the flaws in the first place."
Here's how I responded.
1) I don't think it's possible to stop it [Bush re-assuming the presidency].
2) I don't think an United States with Kerry will address a lot of the fundamental flaws of the country as an oppressive imperialist superpower.
3) I don't see why I should get stuck with jury duty just to make a point.
4) I don't think that voting matters, especially with the Republican governors that have taken position in certain states (including this one) that -- surprise -- have an effect on which electors get to go.
5) As someone said to me today, "will it take all of us being so horribly poor that we're like bombed out people in Mogadishu to stand up and finally wash away this wholly corrupt system?" Bush is closer to that than, well, anybody short of Pat Robertson.
I don't know if you remember, but I was more in favor of Bush being in office than Gore, _because_ I knew he'd ruin the economy and push the world closer to crisis. I said virtually those exact same words. He did more than I could have imagined, and in a much more egregious fashion that I ever assumed he'd have the nerve to do.
You have to remember: I would be elated at the destruction of what's considered the United States of America. I don't believe that the good is good enough to save in the face of the bad, which I have considerably more experience with than I ever wanted, or would wish even on the likes of Dubya, a cretin of the highest order and one of the lowest forms of life I can imagine.
A moderate, a reformer, a "safe choice" like Kerry just means more Malice Greens (man beaten to death in Detroit under Clinton's reign), more rapacious lending allowed by law in low income neighborhoods (payday advances started, again, under Clinton), more unfair sentencing, more unequal protection under the law, more corruption, more lies, more waste, more pay raises for legislators (signed by chief executives, at state and federal levels) while more people starve to death on streets less than a block from where I live.
Maybe it will be a little less under Kerry than there would have been under Bush, but it's still too much for my tastes, and for me to endorse with my involvement.
The only "solution" to me is that voter turnout be larger than ever, a popular vote goes to Kerry ... and Bush wins the electoral vote anyway. Then, maybe people will realize the ineffectiveness of the system as a whole and be forced to do something about it. The American Revolution wasn't led by the poor, it was led by the rich and the middle class. Bush's re-election will incense a lot of the rich and the middle class.
I don't need to do anything to see that happen. This election will be stolen no matter what I do, and I'm already working on how to move past it.
So, no, Eric, I'm not going to vote. Under any circumstance. You said, "refusing to vote solves nothing and just aids the people who benefit from the flaws in the first place." From where I stand, choosing to vote does the same. They're flip sides of the same coin, and the "vote" side signs me up for all kinds of logistical and philosophical drama that I don't want any part of.
I'm sorry if this is a problem for you, but I can't imagine any kind of contrary argument that could be convincing to me.
I suspect his impending move to San Francisco and relocating the Image offices in the process kept this from becoming a bigger argument. I hear a lot of "if you don't vote, don't whine" talk, and I'm like, "who's whining? I'm busy working my way around it." Ah well ...
 THE L WORD:
Now we get to the money shot.
My good friend and elder sister Nau-T called me one afternoon, saying she was very briefly in town from the Bay Area, and would love to hang with me. Nau-T is a very kindred spirit to me and more fun than a barrel fulla pies, so I looked at my schedule and found it wasn't terribly tight, so I agreed to meet her at this restaurant Simply Wholesome down the road. We smiled, and she hemmed and hawed before saying this ...
"Remember a number of years ago, you were checking out my ex, Khali, and saying, 'wow, she's cute ... would you mind if I got at her?' Well ... imagine if the shoe were on the other foot."
It took me a couple of seconds to realize what she meant, that she basically wanted a green light from me to pursue a romantic relationship with my ex-wife. I very quickly said, "Go! Have fun! Go with God! Better you than me!" I found the implied "fairness" argument she used very amusing, as it was un-neccessary, but would have been an attempt to level me into some kind of guilt for saying no if I was so inclined. Brilliantly played, especially given my well known, over-exaggerated sense of fair play. The fact I never hit on Khali notwithstanding (largely due to lack of opportunity, but partially due to Khali having a flat behind).
So I start laughing, and I pretty much laughed my way through the rest of our late lunch. The night I broke up with my ex-wife, April 24, 2003 (or very shortly after), my ex-wife and I were talking, and I told her I could see her switching teams, and with Nau-T, and that I would be fine with it. To see my propechy fulfilled (especially since Nau-T and ex-wife were headed to capoeira class together, almost like it was a date, immediately after this late lunch), it just killed me. With my romantic life going so well these days (despite some schedule-induced road bumps), and me being in a happier space than I've ever been (despite some vague whiffs of melancholy based on said road bumps and nagging doubts about the past), what possible reason could I have had to complain?
I won't go into the whole discussion, but I'll say two things on it. Nau-T asked why I wasn't surprised, and I said, "Well, we both have similar tastes in women," (which she found hilarious) "and you were so close with her through all her emotional turmoil, and she had talked to me about some experiences in the ... non-traditional romantic realm before ... I could see it happening, and I'm cool with it." I did, however, ask that if my ex-wife gets the mood to set up her video camera again, that I get a copy. You know, just because.
Yeah, this is my life ...
GOLDEN: Here's part of why I was so unaffected by this alleged "bombshell" -- nights before, I found myself in nothing more than a pair of boxers, dancing joyously in my kitchen on a Wednesday evening. Four beautiful women have been trading phone calls with me, just trying to see what's up, with varying degrees of stuff going on. After feeling unattractive most of my life, I'm suddenly a cute guy in demand. Plus, my writing is moving (slowly, but moving), my bills may be late but they're payable, and really everything is going awfully damned well. Which, of course, makes me paranoid, but I'm too busy embracing this joy to let paranoia scuttle it. I'd love nothing more than my sister Nau-T to be happy, and if that means my ex-wife has to be happy too, ah well, that's okay as well.
THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT: Example of how cool my life is. I let my dawg Dana my old 20 GB iPod in return for unspecified and unrefusable favors in the future of a non-sexual nature (we often joke that if I looked like Colin Farrell or she looked like Gabrielle Union, we'd so be together, but without those realities neither of us is willing to cross the line). Because she is on a Windows machine, things went awry. I was unable to fix what looked like a software related issue, so I took the thing to the Santa Monica Apple store. Turns out that my iPod was a lot newer than I expected, and under a two year extended warranty as well, with complete coverage until 2006. The very cool Apple Genius there, Nick Bontempo, effortlessly replaced my old 20Gb iPod with a brand new one, no questions asked. I'm giddy. I'll spend a lot of time (unless I can find a copy of Pod 2 Pod by If Then Software) putting the new one through its paces and prepping my 15 GB one for Dana, but that's a small price to pay for a brand new iPod. Woo hoo!
FANMAIL: Speaking of, I'm still trading emails with the Boston-based "fan" of my work, Chinedum (who, I found, is ten years younger than me, which is funny on a lot of levels), and in it he reminded me of the time I read a poem in 1997 to have a teenaged girl approach me in a mall and recite back a line from it in 2001. I am encouraged that what I'm doing is not crap and has value. I struggle onwards.
UP NEXT: I finished a draft of my first article for Black Enterprise and got word Dreamworks Pictures is gonna fly me to New York City for a day to do some press on their new film Shark Tales (which probably means I'll have to talk to Will Smith, who seems to be the only Black person in the film). A sister I met months ago, who lives in NYC, has offered to hang with me that day (when I'm not "working" hahahahaha), which is cool as well. I got a bunch of poetry and fiction editing to do, and I should get back to my recording as I now know what I've been doing wrong with the ambient noise. Much to do, much to do.
"It does seem that sooner or later, no matter where you start, bizarre is where you end up." -- Judy Thompson
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