Doe, a Deer ...

Up.
Early in the morning, dressed in black...

Well, not really. More like drinking green tea.

It's Sunday and the impending Monday dread is settling in the pit of my stomach. I still hate the shortness of weekends. Anyway...

Friday was payday (woooo!) and true to form I spent a chunk of change at a chosen spot (check the technique, losers). This time, Dusty Groove got my money. Rather than talking about my craptacular life, I figured I'd share a little piece of me, something you, dear readers, can take and tuck away in the cockles of your emotional warehouses. Walk with me readers, tour my most recent music purchases and, in doing so, take a tour of through the deepest part of me.

(Let me catch my breath. Okay.)



Most people know that I'll hit you in the face for talking crazy about Extra P. "Queens represent/Buy the album when I drop it." Yeah, I waited and when it did finally drop, a decade or so later, I got two copies, but I digress. Included here, on Breakin Atoms, are some of the best songs ever. I knew that it was the beginning of the end when a dude I was seeing said that he thought "Looking at the Front Door" was just okay. "Watch Roger Do His Thing," pure d. 90s in its earnest tone and drum pattern. Why don't more people praise William's lyrical prowess? Sure, he's no G. Rap or Rakim, but he's no Lil Dap either. One of the best albums of the 90s. If you don't think so, I don't respect you ... at all.



What a disappointment. I'm used to the Island Records Lewis Taylor, the white, slightly more creepy version of Marvin Gaye with sonically enhanced vocals and lush, layered instrumentals. This brit pop/acoustic approach does not do it for me. There is one winner, however; the acoustic version of "Lucky," which originally appears on his '96 self-titled, is a winner. Other than that, tread lightly.



I'm old. See this post for confirmation. I listen to blues artists unapologetically and I like wine coolers. So, my love for Johnnie Taylor is no surprise. I'm sure everyone knows "Last Two Dollars" and "Disco Lady," but the man had a career that spanned decades. This compilation of two of his most ridiculous albums proves why. With song titles like "Your Love Is Rated X" and "Not Just Another Booty Song," you're either a fan or you're not. If you are, pick this one up. The trademark questionable lyrics and husky voice are in full effect.



Eric muthafreakin' Roberson. I do not understand why this guy isn't a star. His songs are quite nice to the shit, he's consistent, he releases an album about every year...I just don't get it. People everywhere should be groovin to good ole Eric. Anyway, this is a live CD and DVD collection of a DC show that he apparently performed almost verbatim here in Chicago. The track list is the same, the interludes are about the same and the "ad libs" are, that's right, the same. Doesn't matter, Eric's a talented dude and deserves all the success he finds. Fans, buy this disc if you'd like live versions of some of his songs. My only gripe is that he chooses to perform some of his more cheesy hits; however, my favorites ("Couldn't Hear Me," "Right Back To You")do appear here as well.



And Eric again. This is his latest studio album and I'm not disappointed. I expected some good shit and I got it. True to form, the first four songs are bangers (his first four songs are always that shit) and the rest plays quite nicely; as a matter of act, I only dislike two songs ("ILuvU2Much" w/ Algebra and the bonus track). Out of fourteen tracks, that's pretty impressive, especially since I consider liking half of an album a triumph (M-Chill says I have the toughest ear in the City).



Yo, this chick's weird. There are no choruses or verses here, just words. The tracks are spacey, bloopy, free jazz-styled hip hop tracks, and she's obsessed with salt having a negative charge. Georgia Anne Muldrow is weird. That said, there are moments here. When she's not being super preachy or howling over tracks that sound like space farts, she's at least interesting, at most kinda engaging. Apparently, she produced, performed, wrote and recorded all 21 tracks, which is impressive. She should actually look into producing for other artists; some of these tracks bump.



Let me admit something, and please don't attack me for it. I have always thought of Marvin Gaye as a crappy singer. Furthermore, I never really gave him credit for having talent as my favorite album of his was pretty much Leon Ware's work (I Want You). I'm sorry, Marvin lovers; I was simply too busy admiring the likes of Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder to pay Marvin much attention. To me, he was just a falsettoed ladies' man with some sexy songs, which is a shame since I own or have heard many of his albums that negate this theory, including Trouble Man and What's Going On. So, I finally buy and listen to Here, My Dear. Really. All I can say is, "Oops." He really uses his voice on this album. Pain, laughter, wryness, bitterness--it's all here. It's like a double album precursor to Erykah Badu's "Green Eyes." And who knew that Marvin was so clever, smart, funny and vindictive? Just hand me a late pass on this one cuz I was seriously sleeping. I think it has to do with the personal pain index. I tend not to really appreciate artists until they're forced to emote publicly and on record. His divorce allowed him to do that, so we are now cool. RIP Marvin. Sorry I slept.



I love crazy rappers with senses of humor. Ghost is a crazy rapper with a sense of humor. I love Ghost. See how that wonderful chain of logic works? So, Dusty Groove didn't have More Fish, but they did have this, so I bought it. Unfortunately, I have most of these songs already. Fortunately, they appear on this disk with much better sound quality. Not much to say here. Most of these songs are great ("The Watch," "The Sun"), some suck. If you aren't a bad person who scavenges the Internet to illegally download "lost" Ghostface tracks, I'd recommmend that you get this collection.

Dun Dun Duhhhhhh

So......yeah.

It's about 7:33 in the morning, I'm up, and I thought to myself, "Self, maybe you should write an entry for your blog." So, here I am.

I've been up since about 5:00 and after catching Madame Sousatzka (wonderful movie starring Shirley MacLaine) and crying at its finale (once again), Roshomon is on and I've just had my morning vitamins.

Where to begin.

I think I'm getting to that place where I'm starting to enjoy my job. The first five weeks have been filled with the requisite doubt and frustration and temptation to quit. My eighth period class is a black hole of chaos, and my stupidity in thinking I could teach full time while taking two classes is showing. Despite this, all this, I sat down Friday after my last student had left, after I had entered the five week progress report grades and thought, "Self, these kids are freakin' crazy, but I think we like them." (Brace yourself reader(s), there will be a alot of third person in this post.)

On to the next topic. Did anyone catch that Beats something something documentary about hip hop on PBS? Some dude, former football player and former man's man, decided, after some amount of self reflection, to do a documentary highlighting the issues of misogyny and homophobia in hip hop. It was only an hour long, but it was good. Mind you, there was nothing groundbreaking about his discoveries (at least not to me. you're reading the blog of a girl who wrote rhymes about killing people with her vagina ... seriously), but it's always wonderful to see a person questioning the hegemony they've been force fed. It's especially impressive to see a man take misogyny seriously. I won't go on too long about this. We've heard all the arguments before. I will say that you (yes you) should check your local PBS listings to check for the next airing. I would love a copy to show to my kids. It could possibly spark a lively debate.

What else, what else? Oh, I attended my first union meeting. Incredibly boring and pedantic stuff. Boo! We're probably going to strike in the fall. What an auspicious sign of things to come in my teaching career.


Finally, let me rail against one of my university professors. I won't be extra bogus by typing her name, but I will say that she is wholly ridiculous and inefficient. See, she teaches my SEED/EDUC 480 class, the class one takes to reflect (I now hate this word by the way) on one's teaching, presumably in order to improve. To be fair, I'm clearly going into this situation with a bad attitude. After teaching five periods of rowdy adolescents, one wants to go home to watch mindless sitcoms and eat creamy, delicious foods. Instead, one must trek downtown, pay exorbitant prices for parking (for one is now too good for public transportation), and sit in class while suffering the indignity of being read to, kindergarten style (semi-circle around teacher, legs crossed steeze), from a frickin' children's book every week. That's right, she reads children's stories to us; she's even kind enough to hold the book up to every face in the room after each page so that we can all see the pretty pictures. Worse, she makes some shoddy, tenuous connection to teaching pedagogies after her weekly crusades of demoralization. Example: Last Wednesday, she read a story about some little boy who finds pieces of clay pottery in his town/pueblo/whatever (let me tell ya, SUPER boring). Then, she proceeds to illustrate how this story is much like the deductive reasoning process involved in making sense of data. Huh? Why not just start with the salient stuff? I'm not quite done. Then we use puzzle pieces to further drive her ingenious observations of data collection home. Dude, by the time I leave that three hours of class, I'm ready to whoop (not whip, but whoop) somebody's ass for that shit. I know you face the task of having to fill three hours of instructional time, but dammit you've been teaching for twenty years. Do better! So yeah, can't wait for this to be over.

That's all I've got. See ya when I see ya.

Dude, I'm Tired

So, it's been a month since my last post. I'm clearly spent. I mean down-to-my-last-penny spent.

Teaching is hard. Those who claim the first year of teaching is hell are both accurate and geniuses. I have nothing, absolutely nothing, to give to my blog right now.

Ummm...my eating habits are still healthy, whole wheat products and oatmeal; long live fiber-induced regularity!

Stay posted for posts with actual content.

Oh wait, I'm not done. I've been a CPS teacher for three weeks and I already have venom to spew at both the Board and payroll. Here we go...SCREW YOU ALL!!! That's right, I'm telling you bureaucratic ass clowns to take a flying freak at the mooooooon!!! So, first they (meaning Human Resources) attempt to claim that I imagined the part where I came to their office to fill out stacks of paperwork. Then, payroll attempts to pay me one-third of my salary and expects me to find the rest. Huh? What part of the game is this? You mean after being thrust into a sea of 110 or so teenagers who haven't had order or instruction for 20 weeks and attempting to restore order to the universe, I can't get paid. And on top of that, you don't want to spell my name correctly despite my calling to correct at least three different people in three different departments? really? REALLY? Wow.

compensatory blackness

i was a happy, well-behaved, well (enough)-adjusted little black girl (with a helluva country accent). this was never an issue. i've read the bluest eye; i appreciate and understand the attacks on little black girls as they try to understand and accept themselves. i've read about and talked with other black women, those who once longed for lighter skin and longer or looser hair. the thing is, that that has never been me. i've never had an issue with my skin color or the texture of my hair (well...perhaps it could be thicker). i've never longed for lighter eyes or longer hair. i've never wondered what it would be like to be white.

my comfort in my black skin i'd have to attribute to my father. my daddy is dark-skinned. his brothers are dark-skinned. the majority of his sisters are dark-skinned, with the "lightest" being my color. my father and uncles and aunts did not try to dilute their blackness; they didn't strategically mate in hopes of having children with looser hair or lighter skin. unlike so many who only give public, verbal commendation to the "black is beautiful" motto, my father's family proved that they believed it by choosing partners who were reflections of themselves.

when i was a kid, my father and uncles always bought the black doll for me. my mom bought me a dukes of hazzard nightgown with bo, luke or both on it, and my father went ape shit saying, "my daughter won't prance around with some white man on her chest." he was against my getting a perm (not my decision, more the decision of my mom and my cosmetologist cousin who lived with us at the time). there was never any reason to believe being a little black girl with nappy hair was something to be ashamed of. (perhaps if i were darker i would have felt more pressure to conform. i can recall two of my cousins being repeatedly told that they were "so pretty to be dark-skinned" when the fact is they were just pretty, period. how would i have felt if i weren't middle-skinded [ha!] and neither here nor there in the crazed color spectrum? i'll never know.)

unfortunately, not everyone has had my experience. there are so many women who recount their stories of wishing to be something other than what they are. and then there are those who are what these women longed to be, but they don't feel black enough. often many of these women become victims of what i call compensatory blackness. compensatory blackness is a staunch afrocentrism that ranges from the reasonable to the cartoonishly rabid. i liken it to those promiscuous and generally dissolute individuals who wild out in their youth then find jesus and cling to him like static electrons. often, those who rejected their blackness as adolescents or those who don't feel as if they are black enough demonstrate a dogged determination to prove to themselves and anyone watching that they are indeed black--blacker than blacker than black as a matter of fact. so, out go the suburban friends of childhood and in come the militant black friends; out go the free spirited drum circles, in come the coffee shop poetry slams; out go the wispy perms, in come the locs; out goes "love has no color," in comes "the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice."

i'm not judging (really, i'm not). i'm just making an observation and writing about it. hell, i'm not above admitting that i had an extended nihilistic period of writing angry poetry, sulking in corners, kicking it with other angry, sulky poets, and aggressively decrying all things conformist. it's a part of adolescence; we all go through extreme stages trying to figure out what makes us happy. i applaud the effort as a matter of fact. the fact that people make the effort to confront their issues shows that they're thinking and understand that growth isn't an autonomous process. i'm just gonna need all those in their compensatory blackness stages to contain their enthusiasm, at least around me. i dont need your rhetoric, and i really don't need to read your current treatise on blackness. i am black, have always been black, and will remain black; i don't need the latest disassociated academic to explain to me how to go about maximizing my blackness. that doesn't mean that i don't continue to learn about my/our history. it does mean that you need to respect that our lives do not share the same trajectory, and perhaps i've already mulled over the distinction between black and Black.

cannonize me

I have really gotta get back to my former reading habits. Lately, I haven't read much outside of the stuff I've been teaching, and we all know about required high school reading--canonical, but not necessarily relevant or panoptic. So yeah, I think I'll actually finish my Octavia Butler (RIP) anthology.

I'd be interested in finding out who read what in high school and college in the way of black authors. I have this theory, but it can't be validated until I gather evidence. Myself, I recall Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, and Jamaica Kincaid--the last being a hint of cultural partiality on part of my afrophile undergrad professor. It seems to me that predominately white universities and perhaps black ones (I wouldn't know, I didn't go to an HBCU) tend to cling to those books that describe the black experience in glaringly dramatic ways. Bigger, Sethe, Lucy--all tragic figures that were representative of blackness predominately by virtue of the tragic circumstances of their lives. Now I'm sure that there is more to the black authors-worthy of-academic-study equation, but people tend to cling to very extreme depictions of black life as the most authentic, and feel as if they can finally humanize us because they've found a bit of sympathy for our downtrodden characters. (Bigger Thomas is no more the prototypical black man than Peter Keating is the prototypical white man.) I think this phenomenon is more hurtful than helpful in that whites can point to these extreme portrayals and say, "Now THAT is racism. Clearly black people do not go through these things anymore and therefore do not experience racism anymore."

The thing is, though, that these representations have never been comprehensive. One of my favorite books by Morrison, Paradise, while still dealing with racism, is much more subtle in the handling of the subject and uses it as a parenthetical remark on the lives of the book's characters. Also, because I am absolutely obsessed with gender roles, this books appeals to me for its focus on the tension between men and women when the traditional order is broken. (When are we gonna start dealing with that bullshit, huh?) I think Paradise is every bit as good as Beloved and every bit as worthy of literary consideration; and though I know I'd get a lot of argument from many, because Beloved is almost universally considered the best thing Morrison's ever written, I stand by my assessment. But it is not about Paradise or even Morrison specifically, it's about including more comprehensive representations of black life in the mainstream.

It seems as if black people always have to be struggling for there to be an emotive response from the mainstream culture. If we're not stuck in "hood movies," we're being saved from that same hood by a benevolent white with a heart of gold (hello Hilary Swank). The truth is that we laugh too, and sometimes the struggle isn't as acute as having to kill some muthaphuckas (though we should and more often), but often the struggle is how to react to an underhandedly racist comment without appearing "bitter" or when and how to express ourselves without "offending" more entitled and oblivious people with delicate sensibilities. Black people experience little dilemmas and large ones, and they are all important. There are a zillion authors who know this and deal with the many shades of us delicately and with an intimate knowledge and gift that should be supported. Check the slideshow above. All of those people knew and know that we're nasty and mean and above repute and angelic and conflicted and funny and boring and gay and straight and transgendered too. It's about time we stop allowing the media to vilify or romanticize us; we are just human after all.

Good Reads:

The Farming of Bones (or anything, really) by Edwidge Danticat

Eva's Man by Gayl Jones

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Another Country (again, almost anything) by James Baldwin

The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

If any of you would like to tell me about your school-related literary experiences, I'd be grateful. Also, if you've read any good books lately, let me know. I'm always looking for a new book.

man hater!

this is isaach de bankole. he's lovely. update: i think he and cassandra wilson have split. that's sad because i do like to see black couples "make it." on the other hand, i can now groupify myself and find his 50 year old fine ass.


i am a weirdo. for the longest time, i have had this inexpressible anger toward members of the opposite sex for what i believed were very justifiable reasons. i was fortunate to have a father who loved (and still loves) me, who was a prototypical "man" in the humanist, not stereotypical and caricatured, way and uncles who, too, were good and caring individuals that this chick could be proud of; but i didn't grow up in a vacuum. i grew up around, went to school with men who were not my brothers, father or uncles, and these men were everything the racist and biased media would have you believe they are:

i learned how to ride a bike pretty late in life. at 10 or eleven i had finally somewhat mastered the concept of pedaling continually without falling to the ground. one day, i felt especially skilled and was taking a short trip around the block when i encountered lindsey (fuck it, i won't change names). let's just say that i never rode my bike around the block again;

before my grandparents died, we (my mother, youngest brother and i) would go to alabama to visit them. these were good times, admittedly made more special by the lens of nostalgia. a huge part of the family would be there--usually all of my aunts, an uncle or two, and various cousins. my oldest brother lived in alabama so he too would be there. one day, i had the special honor of being cornered by one of his clearly older and drunk friends: "i'll only be 37 when you graduate from high school," he says. lesson learned: do not trust strange men;

on the way to the corner store (the corner store that i never before or after walked to alone because i wasn't stupid), a car of dudes passed. i suppose they thought i was cute or something. to show their appreciation, one of them threw a dollar out the car window;

walking home from school one day (i think i was a freshman) on valentine's day (how ironic), i wander into the home of one of my mother's friends. unfortunately, she wasn't home...but her nephew courtney was. teen aged boys are hilariously aggressive, often too aggressive. let's just say that his balls are still reverberating from the kicking they got that day.

why share these cheerful little episodes (i've got a million of them)? because i find it interesting that though we, black women, have these stories in common, so many of us are able to forget the lessons we should have learned from them and continue being the naive, pre-pubescent girls who didn't know better well into our adulthoods. too many of us think our salvation lies in men, and will do anything to get it from men, no matter their worth. too many of us are satisfied with being subservient and forget that there are many men (i use that term loosely) who don't have our best interests in mind; however it's better to be coupled up than to be alone-right?

i primarily watch the food network, pbs and re-runs of will & grace these days. anything else runs the risk of making me angry. that means no BET, no MTV, no VH1. i don't take public transportation anymore and rarely go out to events. this self incubation means that i have very little interaction with the world, which is good. i don't have to remember dudes yelling out their cars at me, dudes hissing at me from street corners, spurned strangers calling me creative versions of bitch. i can effectively forget that there is a whole new generation of abusers and overall useless males who will rape and abuse and generally lessen the well being of somebody else's daughters. that's fucked up too.

i don't think i'm difficult. i'm generally fun-loving. i can take a joke. however, i refuse to accept the position that others are happy with--the prone woman, adam's rib, ass and titties, walking semen receptacles, here only to satisfy the whims of men. i don't do misogyny. i don't do homophobia. i don't do stupidity. i don't turn the other cheek. i don't forgive wrongdoings that could've been avoided. i don't accept apologies. i don't trust you people.

so yeah. my issue with men is really the heart of of my perceived idiosyncrasies, why i'm an atheist, why i'm not paired up, why i'm so cold, and why i'll probably never have kids or get married. i'm still working out my issues with those other people who inhabit the earth.

oh, and i feel the need to say that i'm not a man hater. it's just that i know they can do better and i'm deeply, deeply disappointed. do better, assholes; but of course they won't until we force them to.

last note: read kola boof's stuff--Proof Magazine. sometimes, she's a little extra, but she gets it.

Yay me!

So I got the job.

Dude. I GOT the job.

I'll be teaching Survey Lit (again) and Creative Writing.

My load will be way heavier (five classes instead of four and no co-op teacher).

I'm both anxious and excited.

Dude, I'm a total grown-up and shit...wow.