taxi zum kloh

grind, grind, grind. that's what this past year felt like. intense, energy-driven work, utterly new landscape to navigate, and on a deep level confronting my own blackness. as a people we have issues. it's no longer the age of whitey keepin us down, it is simply ourselves. i've had to reach down into the spirit to do the work, which i treat like a commitment. black teachers need black students. i put that out into the ether a year ago and here i is.

but whoo....so tired some days. i wildly procrastinate; just so i have time chill out and not have a list of things to do. i'm realizing the modern age at my age is some mad business. i'm amazed at the speed kids can text or others can multi-task. i am so missing the neurons required to do that effectively. i'm still well-rooted in my one-thing-at-a-time vibe.

and so art camp begins this week. totally different scene. for one thing, i have one group and more class time. nice! but this one group is a majority of boys. great! no access to a working printer at the moment, lunch program delivery was delayed, so folks went into plan B with frozen spaghetti mama rose made, then the original lunch was relegated to snack time.  

i had to completely wing it. using colored paper and got into contrast and complimentary colors. name a thing in nature with two contrasting colors? that went over cool. kemetic symbols on the yard....very nice. and it was hot, 80+ hot, zaki was super emotional, seynabou kept playing with my keys. finally...at 3pm i bounce. i had errands as usual to run to get prepared for the next day. 

i'm leaving friday for maui and even with a certain of reticence; a super modest budget, no set plans other than connecting with this local cat....i'm getting the eff outta here. i need the move medicine that travel provides my spirit. 

winter : the return V1N2

hey hey. well much to share since *may* of the last post. summer 2009 i went back to beloved guatemala to work on a mural for the los patojos youth center. hard work under blazing hot mornings and heavy rains by mid-afternoon. made some new wonderful friends and found an ex-dear one in a sad state; stumbling drunk in the streets, sallow, and heartbroken by life.

if life has taught me anything it is you can't save a dude from his own wreckage. of course you can support him, but ultimately the work comes from his own force of will and determination. any dude does otherwise will drag a woman down to rumination. there is love and then there is exploitation.

the return to cali and friends visit from new york, switzerland, and sydney. good times and good wine. another girlfriend refers me to an independent school in east oakland and by late august i'm offered a contract position teaching spanish and art for the 2009 - 10 school year.

challenging, inspiring and magical place; the school was built on the kemetic principles of ma'at. i had come to the realization recently, teaching with various programs in the EB that i was a bit undone by the reactionary liberal one-love politics a lot of folks were spinning. my belief is how important it is for black kids to be taught by their own people like myself or younger folks in their 20s and 30s; was often met with derision or the 'people of color' tag.

let me just be clear: black people are not in the same boat as 'people of color'. we were not native to the states and were enslaved. this idiom sounds very cool and colorful and inclusive, but we're still largely marginalized, regulated and defined by white society in america. we have so many issues within ourselves and with one another as a people that i came to a personal catharsis; that the work be done by ourselves with a certain degree of autonomy. we don't have it together like most latino, vietnamese , or arab communities. we are essentially isolated from one another and more inclined to fend for ourselves and talk shit about those who're fucking up or downtrodden; even in our own families. this includes myself. i have family issues that make me run the other way or in the least lay very very low.

we can't really be a part of the world until we get it together as a people of this world.

one morning recently i arrived for my tues AM kinder spanish class. they were talking about
each other's complexions. how mind blowing to me that at the age of 5 they are already separating themselves from one another based on the lightness or darkness of their own skin. this is occurring to them before they even see themselves as black children as a whole.

what the fuck. exclamation.

there are many kids in the school of mixed race like myself; more than of my own generation. i personally think this is beautiful and positive for the parents of those kids to have placed them in a black school so that they can cultivate a strong identity and foundation. i was talking with a few of the middle school boys the other day and my opinion that we can't be racist. 'racism was a construct created by the oppressor against the oppressed,' i said. 'we've never been the oppressor in this country, so that reverse racism thing is nonsense. it simply came about to allay white guilt over our history.'

i watch and listen to the kids cut each other to shreds. they're more apt to compete than cooperate. more inclined to hate on their peers than be positive and supportive. everything is a competition. anything of value (love, life, solidarity) is disregarded. cute shoes, cute hair, being cool, winning, being envied - all these surface things have higher value. black americanism.

i'm mentoring a middle school girls' group, sistas of the earth (SOTE). we had a discussion about chris brown and rhiannon. their opinions came down to this; he shouldn't have done it, but she probably provoked him. they even went so far as to say that she had her bruises made-up to look more severe. despite the heinousness of his actions, chris brown is still the ideal black boyfriend. they forgive him.

what this tells me is that even some insane transgression as violence can be forgiven if he's cute and driving a lamborghini before he's 20. the content of his character, his lack of respect for women is essentially irrelevant.

we did some visualization exercises: beyonce on vacation, reading a book, eating lunch. without consulting one another, all the girls had her in some posh resort in the caribbean kickin it with a tropical drink and coconut shrimp. not a cabin in some croatioan village or hiking the woods. another exercise, jennifer hudson at her family's funeral. 3 out of 5 had her in a blue dress, high heel shoes, and her hair nicely done. all images of hudson that are common in the media (i often see her in blue).

innerestin.

and as well the leadership of the school is a trip. one big beautiful chaotic work in progress. information is hoarded, scripts flipped on the regular, conversations of considerable importance discussed quickly in passing. 16 kids getting dumped on me while i'm in class with 20 other kids.
hey man this schedule was in that memo i got at the last minute that i've had to read a thousand times to figure out what the hell. aren't you on the same page?

my most brilliant strategy of perception. the director, sweet a cancer dude as he is, i'm essentially dealing with the blue print of a 12 year old competitive nerd. a dude's character doesn't change with maturity, he just grows pubic hair.

even in the face of challenge humor is my greatest weapon. it gives me the strength to move on or least crack myself up. and laughter is the best medicine when a pomegranate martini is not accessible.

much love
mslisa

dread + the city

got word today that a friend in nyc is being evicted from her place. the building has been condemned by the city and tenants have to clear out. this morning i saw a frantic post from her on fB to friends in brooklyn. the girls of course came to the rescue! she had convalesced at their place after getting her wisdom teeth pulled.

what saddens me is that this is yet another stroke of grave misfortune for a woman i met randomly waiting tables at a cafe restaurant in east harlem. i was trailing and unlike most people in the restaurant biz training you, it's sink or swim, baby. keep up or die tryin. she actually took the time to decipher the broke-down POS system for me, stayed after closing to share a glass of wine and we swapped our dreams of being groovy get-down artists in the big apple. our second chance as we were into our mid-30s at the time. she had come back from arizona, myself from cali, having left new york years before when i finished art school. but the difference between us is that i knew when the tough get going and can't find a job, while the bills keep piling up, and the sublet fell through with friend-turned-psycho, and having my cats in tow and stuff in storage on varik street and the money running out.. the tough go back home and re-group.

she stayed; eeking out a hustle here, a hustle there (rarely involving her photography) and an endless string of men somewhat good, but mostly bad to keep her afloat. she drank heavily and she partied incessantly. she got insanely thin even for her already petite frame. she bounced from one 'boyfriend's' place to another and residential hotels in between.

i knew bits and pieces of her past, but over time threaded together a woman from an affluent background. (she once mentioned having to pay for her parents' extensive art collection in storage back home. art collection?) i guess the parents were gone, but there was a brother who she had some on-going static with over the very costly lease (or payments?) for a high-end truck.

she had lived in europe for several years in the 1980s being arty and fabulous. she was well-educated and culturally sophisticated. she had been working professionally on photo shoots in california and the southwest. she knew people, but it seemed they had forgotten about her . several years ago, she got a job in the rothschilds household in the city. yeah, that family of insanely old school (18th century!), old world european wealth in international banking and finance. she said their art collection was amazing. a driver would pick her up and take her to the 'residence'. i was enthralled and fascinated with her anecdotes. she had hoped one day, to get some of her art into someone's face. a rothschilds as benefecator is certainly big time.

then health problems began to plauge her; abnormal pap smears, possible HPV, pre-cancerous cells on the cervix. all of this she would play off with her usual ironic and acerbic wit. on the occassion we've stayed in touch, she became more and more disconnected, nonsenical and angry. i've deleted her 'sounding like a crazy lady' replies on fB a few times...what ...? little asides about my ethnicity i found offensive; well yeah, but you're not full black. say what? underlined i felt with some displaced disappointment that she isn't any bit black. i stopped talking about race with her after that; keeping things in the safe zone of art and intellectual bantering. waiting for godot! going to the goog! etc.

eventually i stopped talking to her directly because i sensed a cool person caught up in a deep black hole (i have enough of that with immediate family, thanks!). i keep tabs on her through a mutual friend, who is herself a generous and sweet soul. i spoke to her today about the situation and she was on her way to long island, but seemed a bit distressed at her staying long-term given the highly negative space she's in.

still despite all her ups and downs and hard times, she's never simply gone home. it's as though misery loved being miserable in gotham; a harsh place to be falling apart. but she's in my thoughts and i pray for her.

leave her to heaven

one of my favorite movies from hollywood's golden age is leave her to heaven with gene tierney (one of the most gorgeous women of the era) and cornel wilde. it was the fatal attraction melodrama of its time, but much more quaint and subtle. no obsessed knife-wielding woman here; it's all in the crazed, desperate eyes of gene's character, ellen; her hands in knots as her desperate love for her husband gradually becomes more self-destructive.

there's some issues with the characterizations, taken into the context of the social mores of the time. women of a certain class in america spoke with a discernible north-atlantic accent, were impeccably groomed and dressed and only worked in the home or supervised work in the home. they were refined and educated solely for the purpose of marrying well. hollywood dished up this image of perfection for generations; much like the bad people pay for their bad ways and good people prevail or make saintly sacrifices narrative. there were no gray areas in the american experience (the production code adhered to this strictly through moral fascism and censorship). it was a simpler time; long before audiences became more sophisticated and the cultural landscape of america began to change.

what i love about this movie primarily is gene t. she's a scene stealer in her expressions and the subtle hits of mania hidden underneath her cool and appropriate exterior. she can say nothing and still drop a bomb on everyone in the room with her energy. by comparison, other actors do their parts effectively, but not quite so captivating. gene simply had the most interesting and complex role. her suffocating sense of love is explained through dialogue that she was fixated and obssesive over her father who has passed away. how she, her mother, and sister survived this creepy reverse-oedipal daddy issue drama is never really explored. her mother states, in some form of denial maybe, that 'there's nothing wrong with ellen, she just loves too much.'

in old hollywood lingo, love was the code word for everything good, salacious, evil, noble, sexual and destructive that motivated a human being to do anything. 'do you love her?'
'why yes, yes i do. quite desperately really.' translates into i want to fuck her so bad i can taste it.

the production design by art director Lyle R. Wheeler is stunning; the interiors are painstakingly detailed in the couple's lakeside house, back of the moon and the family's colonial beachfront cottage. one of the earlier color films (cinematographer Leon Shamroy won an Academy Award for his work), everything is in deeply saturated tones of blues, reds, browns, teals and yellows. fascinating to look at even though i doubt gene's lipstick palette actually existed in the real world; it beautifully contrasted or complimented her costume changes.

at the heart of the story is ellen's obsessive love for richard and lack of self. when richard's younger brother danny is given doctor's approval to live with them at back of the moon, ellen tries to no avail to talk his doctor out of it; feeling danny's presence an intrusion. her mother and sister come to visit, she becomes sullen and rude and then sees the friendly disposition between richard and her sister, ruth, as a threat.

ellen although beautiful and impeccable on the surface, is a train wreck of a human being. through a series of events she opportunistically either eliminates people richard also cares about or alienates them from their lives. she deliberately injures herself and miscarries their baby, seeing the baby as competition for richards's affection.

finally, the truth revealed of her twisted love for richard and her obsessive, destructive actions, he leaves her, but not without ellen taking one final bizarre act of revenge.

classic melodrama!
draq queen kitty

insomniac hottness

below was written during one sleepless night. some funny stuff me thinks. enjoy!
frohawk



it's fucking hot in the bay! okay, it's not caribbean hot, but it dayum hot. can't sleep. so i'm writing this and listening to gare du nord.

i've had some strange moments. like the creepy trailer parents and their hifey kid at grocery outlet one afternoon. everywhere i went in the store, i kept crossing their path. i would divert and bump into them again. their energy was disconcerting. it's a bit like having to adjust your pace to someone moving at the same speed and same direction you are. 'am i freaking them out? are they freaking me out?' or 'am i freaking myself out?'

on a run one night for coconut bliss ice cream (which btw is the bomb!) an employee at the ec natural market asks me if i need help, they're closing soon. i'm right near two other women he says nothing to. for some reason i'm singled-out. i was polite, 'i'm fine thanks.' but he seemed uncomfortable as though he was made to approach me. later i thought, wtf. did i look like a shoplifting thug eyeballing the bulk bins. maybe so. i was wearing my puffy jacket and yoga pants. you can stash a lot of bulk nuts in yoga pants.


***

spring. i love this time of year, paticularly around the bay. a lovely season to hike out to the coast. ladies and gentlemen, barbra - on a clear day you can see forever.

during class today i became conscious that my hands were clasped in a knot of stressed outedness. i then became self-aware and relaxed. be joyful in the moment, grasshopper. after that i got the sweetest hug from jaylen, a student who is riley freeman from the boondocks in human form. i kid not! some days i can't even look at him because i start to remember the gangstalicious episodes and i nearly lose my nut.

*****

white people suck. this is scientific fact. i've done the research and have developed this ground-breaking formula: arrogant + snatch all the coolest shit ever which then becomes suck + keep following or eye-balling me around in stores - appropriate my culture yet lack complete understanding + hippie scourge (who've co-opted reggae festivals, thai tattoos, and for naming themselves redwood bark or asstral moon) = wacky whitey. what is it they are lacking? identity?

disclaimer: my mother is not included in my formulation since she's 100% italian and therefore does not fall into the anglo-saxon determinate which my theory is based on.


*****
invasion of the mosquito hawks. there is a plethora of these big aerodynamically challenged creatures invading my apt. some live, others die (otome hunter), but as long as they get them nasty skeeters that feast on my mulatto blood i am so cool with their presence. trundle on, my culicidae critters!


****
i've come to the conclusion that i am not that interesting, but i have done interesting things. there are some really interesting people in the world however such as this dude. alas he passed away. insane artist freak. i actually saw his ass at a gay club in nyc. his costumes were amazing.

****
one of the most joyful things i've come across in awhile were fotos of a friend's trip to japan. this was broken up into several parts over several weeks as he zig-zagged between osaka, hiroshima, kyoto, and tokyo. some beautiful images, detailed well-written captions, and at times hilarious obervations. i still laugh thinking about the deer on an island off the coast of hiroshima that freaked him out. 'plague carriers'. (lol)


****
i said, 'gentelmen don't wear their pants like that.'
'only pimps!' ulysses stated.

jade sells her death : V1N4

this is england
banksy's stencil graffiti of jade with a pound sign on her forehead and vultures circling above

one of the oddest things i've been reading about lately is that of jade goody's tale of woe. she's a a 27 year old reality tv star in the uk from the show big brother. she shot to fame there in 2002 and last year she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. this month she was told her illness is terminal and everything which occurs in her life is now being taped for ITV2 in england.

it gets better. her beau jack tweed, a dude of only 21, (and recently released from jail for assault) proposed to her after she was given her prognosis. they're got married in late february near hatfield heath. jade also has two young sons from a previous relationship and has stated that the media circus documenting her illness is for the financial security of her kids.

and she's making bank as a dying woman. TV, writing a column for OK! magazine, books, and a perfume called Shh (no kid!) that outsold beckham in the UK. although the economy is in the tank there as much as it is here, jade's wheelins and dealins seems impervious to it.

it is odd, but at the same time seems relative to living in an age of 'reality' tv where everything is for consumption and scrutiny all the time. people are making a living from being documented; taking a wee, eating, fighting, failing, succeeding, and now...dying? it is morbid, but
is also an extreme form of getting one's hustle on in the modern age - that is the sale of one's own death.

it's become so grotesque it's as though she no longer exists in the mortal realm. she exists in the realm of illusion, but in the context of a human and very nearly ending young life. i asked a friend in london what she thought about it all, since she sees more jade hype 2-4-7 on her side of the pond:

i'm sick and tired of hearing about her. she is trash. i feel so so bad for her children. aside from that i don't care. thousands of women suffer and DIE of cancer every year in this country alone and they are often single mothers or struggling families that have to 'make do' and cant afford proper care or treatment!

she is totally exploiting the media! and what rubbish is this of her even trashier boyfriend asking her to marry him... can anyone smell dinero? in her will! he marries her, he gets half... surprise surprise! they broke up and recently got back together. its sick that he manipulates her like that too! but what really gets me angry is that she was called up by the hospital to come in for a checkup and review of her samples and she ignored it numerous times till it hit the point of no return.

do u know how privileged we are in this country to have the facilities and the resources to cater for this need and i guess she is paying for her own ignorance and selfishness. i just pray for her kids. cancer is an awful disease. i've lost family members to it and for her to turn her nose up at it, well its come back to bite her in the arse. good luck to her.

aya

passing strange: V1N3

A young black musician travels on a picaresque journey to rebel against his mother and his upbringing in a church-going, middle-class, late 1970s South Central Los Angeles neighborhood in order to find "the real". He finds new experiences in promiscuous Amsterdam, with its easy access to drugs and sex, and in artistic, chaotic, political Berlin, where he struggles with ethics and integrity when he misrepresents his background as poor to get ahead. Along with his "passing" from place to place and from lover to lover, the young musician moves through a number of musical styles from a background of gospel to punk, and then blues, jazz, and rock. He finally returns home.

Passing Strange : New York Times / Theater