Saturday, August 23, 2008

the day color came into my life

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i am sometimes accused of being racist--a charge i dispute, since skin color isn't a criterion i've ever thought about twice when choosing those i've befriended, slept with, dated or looked up to.

tell you the truth, my thoughts about the whole race thing are a tangled knot in my head--i suspect, when it comes down to it, i'm more of a culturalist than anything else--and i've decided this blog is a perfect place to explore some of those thoughts.

here, for your illumination (and, hopefully, mine) is installment no. 1 in said exploration.


a caveat: this post is a musical one. you wanna get what i'm saying here, you have to commit at least 60 seconds of your time to each of the tracks below--trust me, they weren't thrown in haphazardly--and, more importantly, try to put yourself back to where i was then.

if you can't do those two simple things, then don't bother reading further, because it'll just be meaningless words.

* * * * *

i grew up in a time and place--a shiny, lily-white, brand-spanking new subdivision in early-60s houston--where it was possible to go for years without ever seeing a single black person. and for large swaths of my childhood, that's pretty much the way it went.

think about it a second, and imagine what it must've been like: there were no black people in my neighborhood, or in my school, or in the stores we frequented, or on television, or on the radio stations my parents listened to--it's not that black people were good, bad or indifferent; it's just that they simply didn't exist in my world.

[in fact, the first black person to whom i ever personally spoke was a housekeeper we employed for several weeks while my mother was bedridden after my sister's birth--i was six, her name was viola and she made incomparably good sandwiches--and it would be five years before i spoke to another.]

but the other place in which no black person was ever found was on our living-room stereo.

see, my dad ruled the roost when it came to the music in the house, and dad was a die-hard country fan--i'm talking hank williams (because, of course, he was god), hank thompson, roy acuff, lefty frizzell, ernest tubb, marty robbins, rose maddox, webb pierce, jean shepherd, johnny cash, patsy cline--i could go on and on. this is the sort of music i grew up with: hard-core country, almost always twangy--and invariably white.

and that's the way it was.

until the day dad walked in with one of those familiar brown-paper packages from the record store under his arm, flipped off the tv in the middle of the cartoon i was watching, called out to my mother, "get in here, ann--you gotta hear this," and yanked his latest acquisition outta the bag.

and all i saw--not only against a very red background but against all reason--was an album cover featuring a very black man in sunglasses with very white teeth. and all i remember thinking--even though i didn't know the word back then--was, "what the fuck?"

what the fuck, indeed. because when the needle dropped on this most improbable new record, i sat spellbound as i listened to country-western songs i'd heard all my young life interpreted in ways i'd never even imagined possible.

to really understand what i heard that day, you first have to get a sense of what i'd been exposed to up until then, so i'm gonna give you a couple examples.

for instance, roy acuff wrote and recorded this song--an enduring country classic--long long before i was born:




even at six, i'd always found "worried mind" trite, one-dimensional and stupid--until the following hit me like a ton of bricks, and my eyes were opened forever:



sublime, ain't it? i could listen to this over and over--and often do (in fact, i'm doing it right now).

but the one that really nailed it for me was this strange new black man's cover of a song i'd always actually liked.

see, unlike most of my dad's favorites, don gibson wasn't twangy--he wrote great songs (such as "sweet dreams" for patsy cline), and favored subtle, low-key arrangements that featured his 12-string-guitar virtuosity rather than the pedal-steel excess that was so common back then. the following is a perfect example of his consummate skill (and one i have on my ipod to this day):





but as good as his version was, "i can't stop loving you" didn't truly come alive for me until that fateful day in 1962 when i first heard it like this:




yeah, a paradigm-shift at six--how about that?


* * * * *

a year or so thereafter, two notable things happened: (1) i was given a record player of my own for christmas; and (2) the station manager for the no. 1 rock & roll/r&b station in houston moved into the house next door and started feeding me all the new records--and new musical experiences--i could ever possibly want.

but i still have to thank my uber-white, reactionary dad for first showing me that black folk might not only see things different, they can even see things better.

you wanna go further in the story, click here.


Thursday, August 21, 2008

...starring colin farrell's eyebrows

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[this is not a movie review (there's somebody in the family who's much better at that sorta thing than me, if he'd just do it--and he knows who i'm talkin about); it is merely a movie recommendation, with a couple observations thrown in.

and i wouldn't even be doing this if i had something better to cough up; but truthfully, collapsing on the couch with v and a bowl of popcorn to watch this movie was by far the most exciting thing i did this week--god knows there are lots of worse ways i coulda spent my time.]

i had to sleep on in bruges before i figured out how i felt about it; here's what i'd come up with by the next morning:

  • the story goes down a lot easier if you can look at it as a greek tragedy (with all the contrived artificiality and inevitability that implies) rather than a this-could-actually-happen sequence of events--if you can make that leap, then it's actually a lot of fun
  • the performances were universally good--ralph feinnes obviously had a field day being allowed to cut loose and be coarse for a change
  • colin farrell's a damn fine actor, but it's those infinitely-expressive eyebrows that make him a star
  • if you rent it, make sure to watch the (several of them inexplicably-) deleted scenes afterwards--they'll fill in a lot of the gaps that left you wondering
  • bruges is gorgeous--i gotta go someday
  • damn quentin tarantino for enabling other filmmakers to believe they can mix lighthearted banter and graphic violence as well as he can--because most of 'em (including these guys), sadly, can't

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

a squeaky-clean post

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having had my recent fill of controversy and strife, i decided i'd go for something totally innocuous for this week's monday night i'll-regret-it-later drunken blogpost.

tonight i've elected to talk about irish spring, because it's my soap--and truly, what could be less controversial than that?

[unless i confess this to a homogay, of course; then it's all, "i can't believe you allow that vile, poisonous shit to even touch your skin--what kinda fag are you, anyway?".

which is nothing compared to the reaction i get when it comes out that not only is irish spring my body wash, it's also my facial soap, exfoliating scrub, shaving cream, moisturizer, shampoo and conditioner; hell, if i could use it to brush my teeth, wash my dishes and lube up my boys--and don't think i haven't tried--i'd be set for life.

but, as usual, i digress.]

it's not that i'm that crazy about irish spring per se; on the contrary, i use it for a reason that has nothing to do with my personal preferences (and the fact that it's kind of a pathetic reason makes it no less valid--at least, that's what i tell myself).

here's the deal: i use irish spring because when i get outta the shower, the aroma wafting off of my moist, freshly irish-springed body drives my cat wild with desire.

there, i said it--and that's the first step, right?

i remember the first time it happened: i'm walking around post-hot/cold shower, air-drying as usual, and the cat--aloof under the best of circumstances--is suddenly winding herself around my legs in ecstatic little figure-eights. and i'm thinking, what the fuck--she never does this unless i'm about to feed her, and only then if she's really hungry.

and then all of a sudden she jumps up on the desk (which i happen to be standing next to) and starts rubbing her face all over my stomach, purring like a 747 preparing for takeoff.

at first totally mystified by this unprecedented display of affection, i eventually figure out it's gotta be the irish spring soap i just bought at the 99-cent store--shit must be acting like catnip on her.

to test this theory, i sit down at the desk and instantly she's all over me, rubbing and pawing, begging to be petted, licking my hair and purring like crazy--acting, in other words, like a cat that actually gives a rat's ass for a change. whole thing went on for at least ten minutes, and we both walked away exhausted.

and next time i get outta the shower? sure as shit, she's on the desk, tail flicking back and forth, waiting for me. and in spite of myself, i'm drawn to the chair, i sit down and, god help me, we go at it again.

and ever since, it's become our little thing, and we both enjoy it--and if it takes my continued use of a harsh, toxic, artificially-scented antibacterial soap to provide a contact-high to my otherwise standoffish little cat, it's a small price to pay, right?

please say yes.

Monday, August 18, 2008

like any of 'em would actually have a shot

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i see all these gay bloggers (and their commenters) agonizing endlessly over whether michael phelps is pretty enough to merit their interest, and i smile--talk about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing*.

[there--i've gotten the obligatory michael phelps post outta the way; thank god that's not hanging over my head anymore.]

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* apologies to mr. wilde.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

note to self

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stay away from third-rail topics when you're lit.