because that's the way things were back then (part 2 of 2)

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[if you haven't, you might wanna read part one first]

today when white people use the "n" word, it's generally to be either provocative or malicious. back then, there was a third reason: it was just the way lots of white people where i grew up referred among themselves to black people. it's not that there was any particular ill intent behind the use of the descriptive; on the contrary, it was in most cases used with casualness, matter-of-factness and ease, some sense of which i attempted to convey in the examples i used in part one of this post.

* * * * *

by the time i entered junior-high school, the district was fully integrated, and between a quarter and a third of the student body of my school was black. at first it was a little strange, but everybody adapted pretty quickly, and soon it wasn't even an issue.

high school, on the other hand...

* * * * *

i attended robert e. lee high school. at the beginning of my sophomore year, it was, as it had always been, the home of the fighting rebels. rather than a single mascot, we had the rebel guard, consisting of six pseudo-confederate "soldiers" whose job it was to fire a cannon at strategic points in pep rallies and football games.

at half-time during each football game, twelve young men known as the lee gentlemen (honor students all) would with great pomp and ceremony unfurl an enormous confederate flag with twelve handles sewn in all around its perimeter, and stretch it out until it was the size of a small parking lot.

then, resplendent in their red blazers and white pants, they would lift to their collective shoulders this symbol of our school spirit and march it up and down the length of the field to the accompaniment of our drill team (the rebelettes) tossing their batons, hysterical cheering from the stands and the band blaring our fight song--which, as you might have guessed, was "dixie."

[i tried but failed to come up with some pictures of this spectacle, but the following shot of the ole miss flag--to which ours was pretty much identical--will give you the idea.]

* * * * *

by the end of my sophomore year, however, all of our confederate symbols were gone with the wind.

the robert e. lee rebels had become the robert e. lee red raiders. gone was the rebel guard (they became the cannoneers--until someone was deafened during a football game and firing the cannon was outlawed altogether). gone were the rebelettes (they became the raiderettes), and gone was "dixie." and gone was the big confederate flag--replaced by a similar-sized red tarpaulin in the center of which was a large depiction of the yosemite-sam-like "red raider" which had been chosen by the district as our new mascot.

while there was great bitterness in many quarters over this decision (and a few weeks following its announcement when the racial tension was so thick on campus that you could cut it with a knife), it wasn't fought too overly hard, because times were changing--even in east texas--and everybody knew it.

* * * * *

i chose these stories from the thousands of similar ones in my past because these are always the ones that cause the most jaw droppage when i tell them to people--especially people under 30.

and they always react like i'm telling tales of another country, or of a different geological age; they find it inconceivable that such things could have taken place in their country within the span of my lifetime.

and now that little boy who not so long ago couldn't figure out what the "colored window" was for is about to have the opportunity to vote for a black man for president.

fuck what anybody (including me) says--this really is a remarkable country.

because that's the way things were back then

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in my last post, i laid out how insulated from the whole race thing i was as a young child of six.

and it wasn't so much that my parents were particularly racist (whatever that term really means); it's more like the subject just didn't come up much around the dinner table.

and yeah, there were black people on television back then, but we're talkin acceptable black people like nat king cole, lena horne, sammy davis jr. and johnny mathis (and maybe an occasional novelty like chubby checker or little richard)--but nothing that would seriously shake up the status quo.

but black people in my real, everyday walking-around life? sorry, no.

here's what i remember from my childhood as regards race:


whenever we were on a roadtrip from our home in houston up to tyler (a town in northeast texas where both my parents were from), we'd always stop at this great little hamburger stand in some podunk town about halfway there. and as we walked up to the order window, i'd always take note of the little sign that said "colored window" with an arrow pointing around to the left side of the building.

and every time i'd walk around the corner, expecting to see a beautiful stained-glass window like in church--and every time i was disappointed, because it was always just an ordinary window like the one in front. [true story--i really was that dumb when i was a little kid]

* * * * *

when my dad died, my mother elected to put our house in the shiny, lily-white houston neighborhood on the market (like she really had a choice), and move us back up to the safety and familiarity of east texas and family.

and i'll never forget the day in that summer of '67 that the nice real-estate lady brought the nice black couple over to look at the house--and i don't remember this merely because they were black (although that woulda been enough in itself), but because that very evening we were visited by a seemingly endless stream of neighbors, each of whom took it upon themselves to patiently and earnestly explain at great length to the young widow why she shouldn't sell her house to the nice black couple.

* * * * *

once we were safely ensconced in tyler, however, things changed somewhat--because there were lots of black people there. for the most part, they were confined to north tyler ("niggertown," in the local parlance), but the enforced proximity of a much-smaller population pretty much ensured we'd all see a lot of each other.

* * * * *

my first year of school there (fifth grade) was as lily-white as had been my houston experience, but when i entered sixth grade, i found that the effects of busing had finally been felt in my little world--my god, we had a black kid in our class (turns out her name was phyllis, she wore glasses and was shy, sweet, skinny, scared as hell and all alone, and i remember we all tried to make her feel as much at home as our collective clumsy, lame-ass whiteness would allow).

* * * * *

going from the big city to a small, semi-rural town had more than its share of culture shocks, and i remember one of the biggest being the annual smith county fair; it happened out at the fairgrounds the third week of every september in tyler--there were carnival attractions and blue-ribbon contests and rides and spectacles, and everybody who was anybody had to show up at least one night that week.

except, of course, on tuesday--because tuesday was nigger night.

* * * * *

there's more, but you'll have to wait for part two.

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.

...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

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.

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.

note to self

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