One interesting thing, in relation to the previous story. My uncle Archie was walking down the road one day and passed by the Carter place and stopped, his mind wandering off or something. Miss Amy Carter, Billy's stepmother, had apparently bought a new bonnet and was showing it off while she was working outside. She saw Uncle Archie standing out there, she was a rude crude woman, and she yelled at him, "whats the matter boy, you ain't never seen a white woman before?" My Uncle, in true Archie Deramus fashion, replied, " Yea, but I ain't ever seen one so damned ugly."

The community that my grandmother and her siblings grew up in was a very integrated community. As such, my grandmother and her siblings grew up around white people and knew them in their daily lives. Hell, not only did they know them, they were related to them. Anyway. But alas, there was one that was really close to us and very dear to our hearts, the Carter family, and in particular, Billy Carter. Billy Carter's father owned the general store there in the small community of Joffre and Billy and my Uncle Lawrence and my Uncle Archie all grew up fussing, fighting, playing and tussling with each other. They were like brothers. Billy would come around my great-grandparents house, when they were older I suppose, and he would say "John Archie, you are surely crazy trying to send all of your kids to school. I'm not going to college, Im going to take over my father's store." Well, things didnt turn out the way Billy wanted them to as his father's second wife took everything, unfairly, when his father died, leaving Billy broke and really destitute. HE went through his lean years, and he went through periods of great fortune--for a while he owned about a street full of houses, and told my mother when she moved back to Alabama she could have one of them. Unfortunately, when she did move back to Alabama, he had lost all of his assets, including his houses. He and Uncle Lawrence were always close-- uncle Lawrence got him several jobs when Billy was in need and they always had each other's back. Billy had a really bad end though, when he died about three years ago. His ungreatful children put him in a nursing home (where none of us had any contact with him) and he died shortly thereafter. He was quite a character though. He was a good man too.

I moved to alabama when I was in the third grade. Immediately there were problems as they wanted to put me back a year as I was a younger than I was supposed to be in the third grade and they felt I should be kept with children my own age. My mother told them that no, becase I was keeping up with my work that I should stay where I was. This resulted in me withdrawing from Prattville and spending half a year at Autaugaville. Autaugaville is the school where my uncle Fess ( Sterling James) McDavid, Aunt Bertie's husband had been principal. The difference between the school then and when I attended was that, when I was there, the school was only 98% black as opposed to fully segregated;-) and secondly, the school was seriously underfunded and deprived of the resources it needed to thrive in favor of the white schoolss, mainly Prattville. When I got to Autaugaville, it was another battle, and one which I suppose has seriously left scars on me. Well, the principal there had a serious vendetta against my Uncle and my family (even though he was married to my Grandmother's cousin). Apparently, Fess had his select students (of this I know, please, my grandmother was one) and of these, he also had "his boys" and apparently Charles Cooper, the principal, was not one of them and this caused him to not like Fess. Well,anyway, Cooper used to whip me almost everyday for something, and then proceeded several conferences in which my mother, and my Aunt Betty went up to Autaugaville and blessed him out. He also proceeded to tell my mother that I was going to grow up and be a sissy. I didn't know what that meant at the time, but apparently it was something he especially didn't like. Well, I didnt understand much of it at all-and generally just cried and got it over with and went on about my business ( although I did understand that he didn't like my Uncle and that was part of his problem)well, as I grew and put in in perspective thats when I decided that I was not going to take any shit. I will be respected or I will try my best to castrate you. So, I spent that half a year at Autaugaville and then I went back to Prattville, where I began to encounter white folk on a real level and I believe it was then that I began to stop being the always-smiling, pleasant Brandon and began to identify the real bitch in me. However, that really didn't come about until I reached High School-- then I became the major bitch that I can be today.

I must go back and clarify from a previous post. I gave the impression that my mother was not aware during the Civil Rights movement. This is totally false. My mother is, and has always been, one of the most perceptive people I have ever known. I gained my sense of history and my understanding of things from her. My mother is one who has always had her ears open....

What Do You Think of This Statement?

Power and Authority told me I was Wrong so I decided to castrate it.

I ran into anatoli yesterday. Everytime I see him I have this feeling of "oh my, hello" and then this slight urge to lure him back into my bed.

I was thinking about the history of this country the other day. My thoughts were that we are at the beinning of a new century, the 21st century and I was reflecting on where we were at the beginning of the 20th century. This period totally does not reflect that one. At the beginning of the 20th Century, we were coming off of the excesses of the Gilded age-- with classes that possessed extreme wealth while the proletariat slaved away in the mills and factories, while industrialization carved out new modes of living for the petit-bourgeois farming classes who moved into the cities and became the urban poor. The U.S. economy was relatively stable and living was at least simple, relatively. At the beginning of the 21st Century, the U.S. economy is headed into decline, the old empire has risen and is now about to fall. The age of America is in collapse. While at the turn of the 20th century, there were economic changes that altered people's lives. At present, we are witnessing a period of destablization which will not only change people's lives, but result in a complete overhaul of the way of life that the people of this country have grown to expect, especially since the 1950s.

I just noticed that they put the KE frathouse next to a church,as if putting it next to a church would stop them from doing whatever they would do.

Recently, I was thinking about some events that occurred when I was four years old, that have apparently stuck with me since that time. the first I remember sitting at my Aunt's house watching Uncle Tom's Cabin--the dramatized film version, and wanting to go to the Goodson-Smith family reunion, but my mother wouldn't let me go. Secondly, I remember going to Harold Washington's funeral. I remember them in this pattern because the two things happened very much in the same time period as the other. I also link the two because, as I remember it, I had polished my dress shoes and gotten all of my clothes ready and then my mother told me I couldn't go to the family reunion, which made me mad...and I remember it that way, and also I remember polishing my shoes in order to go to Harold Washington's funeral which I remember as being very grave and solemn. We were at my Aunt Johnnie's ( Aunt Bertie's really) house, which was right across the street from ours, and I remember my mother checking my shoes to make sure I had polished them properly (which, I believe was the main reason I didn't get to go to the family reunion) and then we made our way to the funeral. I remember there were thousands there and the atmosphere was grave. I remember very little else about it, but it was quite profound and it has always stayed with me.

I was watching a program with Condoleeza Rice yesterday, and her image has been at the forefront in the media these days, and as I watched her on the television I began to wonder how she lives with herself. How does she bring into agreement her Blackness and her loyalty to the Bush administration? When she has someone to pull a hot comb through her hair to straighten the kinks out, does she not ever think of the millions of Black people who suffer due to the policies that she upholds? Does she never feel any connection to the pain that Black people feel? Now, as I have said before, Condoleeza Rice is from Birmingham, and came out of the same period as my mother--and not too long after Angela Davis came out of the same area. She was around when the 16th Street Baptist Church got bombed and those little girls got killed. Did she feel nothing?

Now, in an interview she gave recently, she stated that she was not very much influenced by the Civil Rights movement, that during that time period she was running around in pigtails and going to the ice skating rink and having parties, so she was not aware and it had no affect on her. What an odd statement, and odd to consider-- as this is not uncommon of middle class Black children of the time--they could be oblivious--some were, however, including my mother and millions of others, they did not grow up to become neocons and they certainly didn't become mouthpieces for the Bush administration in its total lack of respect for humanity. What happened with her? Is she an extreme example of the effects of assimilation? Thse thoughts plague my mind from time to time as I watch her movements and her body language on television, as I listen to her speak--and I can tell that the words that she speaks are not firmly connected to her self-hood--and I just wonder, is it so easy to wake up in the morning knowing that you have sold your every last ounce of integrity simply to move up into the good graces of the white male power structure? I think it is too terribly past the time to castrate this goddamned phallus.

Last night I watched Sex, Lies, and Videotapes. I first saw this film when it came out back in the 80s. Any interesting linkages between my childhood and who I am today? I think this is an incredibly interesting film and I really think about it in the context of when I first saw the film. My only impressions were that it was really sensuous. I thought(and still think) that Andy MacDowell is one of the most beautiful women on the face of the earth. Along with that, I was utterly attracted to Andrew Shue, he turned me on even then and made this movie a great pleasure to watch. He truly is a beautiful man. God, I should have been at least 20 in the 1980s. Overall, I think this film has a lot of interesting things to say on the topics of sex, privacy versus public persona, and the intimate human being. Beautiful movie.

George Bush is Stupid.

A Sad Day

August Wilson, the wonderful playwright who brought us Fences, is dead

There shall be no more talk from me about castrating white men. This is definitely too much of a blanket statement and is a bit unfair. However, it should definitely be kept in mind what this power structure is and what the nature of power and force are. It also does not mean that I will not continue to critique and call out what I see. But I do believe it is unfair to call for the castration of all white men.

Today I stopped by Vons and happened upon a casebook by and about Joyce Carol Oates. I haven't really paid much attention to her stuff really, but I picked up the book and as I flipped through it I caught mention of the film Smooth Talk with Laura Dern, which, I learned was based on a short story written by Oates. This, of course, intrigued me, as I found that film most striking and full of interesting statements on women, sexuality, and adulthood. Most plainly put, I found this film very eerie, and I liked the film, and every time I have seen it it causes me to stop and think about what is going on in it. The play between innocence and mature sexuality which is played upon in this film sends prickles up one's arms and shivers up one's spine with the extent to which sexuality is portrayed as dirty in this film and the feeling that the filmmaker plants within the film that the protagonist, Connie, has just bitten into the forbidden apple and that her fate from now on will be one of dread. Alas, the score, which is a song by James Taylor,is absolutely haunting and I cannot hear that song today without the hairs on my arms standing up.

In the film, Connie is a fifteen year old girl living in a small country town, longing to be grown and rebelling against her mother's wishes by showing just how grown she is with her school friends (by taking trips to the mall and hanging out at adult bars and letting men buy drinks for them). This "adult" behaviour results in her gaining the attention of Arnold Friend, who when introduced in the film is already a shady character who, when he appears, strikes fear in the heart of the viewer. In the role of a teenager, Arnold Friend is clearly not a teenager, but at least ten or fifteen years older. When he pulls up in front of Connie's house in his shiny convertible with his sidekick, who may well be a teenager, one already knows that what will unfold will not be good, or even a sappy teenage story.

All the while Connie interacts with him, one wants to grab her and pull her back from the danger that we know that she is encountering. His offers to "take her for a ride," and the fact that he knows just too damned much about her and her family for someone who isn't even from her town, a complete total stranger, just refines the eerieness of the film and adds to the feeling of impending doom that one gets from viewing it. What feminists have to say about this film, which I got a glimpse at from the book at Vonn's should definitely interesting.

Laura Dern carries this film off well.She is definitely one of those actresses who defines themselves in terms of their politics and the choices of roles that they take on. Not one to try and rule the limelight or wear the crown of Hollywood, Laura Dern's film roles always have depth, meaning, and a richness of character, from Connie in Smooth Talk to Ruth in Citizen Ruth, you can always count on Laura Dern to bring a complex, thought-provoking character to the screen. This is a great film and I should definitely read the story. Joyce Carol Oates seems to be quite a profound, and insightful writer.

I think blogs are the new salons. Interesting to see how they will influence the world. I sort of fancy myself as becoming sort of a Madame de Stael. haha.

Natural High

By Bloodstone

Natural High

Why do I keep my mind on you all the time
And I don't even know you

Why do I feel this way
Thinking about you every day
And I don't even know you

Take me in your arms
Thrill me with all of your charms

And I'll take to the sky on a natural high
(I want to take to the sky)
Loving you more 'till the day I die
(On the natural high)
Take to the sky on a natural high
(I want you to be mine)
Loving you more.

If you have anything to do
Call me and I will do it for you
And I don't even know you

If I only had one wish to give
That wish would be for you to live forever and ever.
When I see you on the street
My heart skips a beat

And I'll take to the sky on a natural high
(I'll just take to the sky)
Loving you more till the day I die
(on a natural high)
Take to the sky on a natural high
(Loving you more and I don't know you)
Loving you more

I'm gonna try to do
All the things you want me to
If you'll just give me a chance
I'm trying to make something out of a nothing romance
And I don't even know you

Take me in your arms
Thrill me with all of your charms

And I'll take to the sky on a natural high
Loving you more 'till the day I die
(To the sky)

I'll take to the sky on a natural high
Loving you more

And I'll take to the sky on a natural high
Loving you more 'till the day I die

I'll take to the sky on a natural high
Loving loving you

I'll take to the sky on a natural high
Loving you more 'till the day I die

I'll take to the sky on a natural high
Loving loving you

La la la la la la ...

Tower of Power

Over the years, I have absolutely loved and gone crazy for Tower of Power. I soo should have been alive to really scream and go crazy for them. Just more of the mellow music that takes me down to my natural element....

YOU'RE STILL A YOUNG MAN
Tower Of Power
written by Emilio Castillo and Stephen Kupka

You're still a young man, baby
Whoo-ooh, don't waste your time
You're still a young man, baby
Whoo-ooh, don't waste your time
Down on my knees,
heart in hand
I was accused of being too young,
but I'm not so young
Can't you understand
that I think like a man?

You're still a young man, baby
Whoo-ooh, don't waste your time
You're still a young man, baby
Whoo-ooh, don't waste your time

Back once again,
begging you please
Darling, think twice about me,
'cause I'm not so bad
I could make you happy,
I'm not a mad lad

(You're too young to love)
If you and I could be together
(You're too young to love)
I'd get to you through any weather
(You're too young to love)
I love you and I love you only
(You're too young to love)
I'd never leave you lonely
You're too young, whoo-ooh,
don't waste your time

The damage is done,
you'll see that you're wrong
You'll wake up wondering
just how well I've done
Well, I've done all right
Yes, there are some girls
but I'd drop them on sight,
Just for you
because I love you

You're still a young man, baby
Whoo-ooh, don't waste your time...