In a few hours perhaps one. I will enter the zone where I turn 55. Have i been on Facebook for a birthday before? Some of you may know that 15 years ago I created kevinis40@yahoo.com. I never changed the 40 to 41, 42 43,...and so on because creating web addresses motivates me more than being accurateness is not that I am ashamed of age, I hardly believe that they apply to our biological changes. I find it ludicrous that we actually invest in the notion that one changes based on his/her evolution around the sun. Its so preposterous that it even goes against biblical teachings. But I am not religious either.
I have kept a journal since I was 18. 55-18 = 37. For 37 years I have written about myself. I have noticed cyclical issues and if they are problems that should have been solved based on a 12 month calendar created back in the Roman era, then I am way off course. My Life is full of cyclical unresolved problems. One problem I have escaped it that of worrying about how awful my existence as a problem in the UNITED STATES has been. Its a fact that we are not a democracy but rather a plutocracy . I used to fault myself for my short comings but no longer. its by and large poppy cock . At 55 I am where I was when I started. I am still watching wealth yet not have any. I am still looking at voting while not getting any more power. Finally I still live in a colonizing nation that denies it is a colonizer. It will not change in my life time
Yet I now wish to focus on my contributions to truth and the search for information that leads me toward it, I may get some wrong.But not much. Using the internet and books, I will share what i can.
Finally I will not hide behind my age nor color and refuse to be held accountable for what I state, print or say. How many women out there proudly proclaim their ages and brandish them about? NONE? How many men can admit that they are lost in themselves? FEW////
i am 55 and lost......but i find that Hansel and Gretel did drop some crumbs...
This morning I awoke from a dream where I was in boot camp. Can you imagine me a 54 year old pacifist in somebody's boot camp? I know....But sure as Jack Nicholson's famous words.... YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH , I was in military fatigues jogging to and fro.Needless to say when I messed up and lost track of someone in front of me, I was accused of giving our position away to the enemy.
Whose enemy....where are enemies when you need them? A communist or a terrorist would have made me feel just miserable, just miserable enough to ask the sergeant in my Gomer Pile voice, please let me try ... let me try again. Instead I just flayed there half asleep wondering why I felt slighted by someone. Why I felt some other solider in my dream made me the butt in of a prank. I did not loose my step, I was tripped. Its always dreams that avoid revealing answers.. even more of a problem when you keep wanting logic to apply after you've awakened. When you are awake and keeping thinking like you are asleep....That's when you are suppose to realize it was a dream after all. Man when I realized the dream was over... suddenly I grew brave....
I sat up stuck out my chest thinking. If I had my way, I would tell the sergeant to kiss off. I dared my dream to come again...let me at em.. that is what I wish I had said in the dream.
Life is like that for me, I work at a fast food restaurant and often I wish I had said, screw you to a rude customer or that demanding manager. But I dont...I need that pay check; so I mumble some indiscernible unintelligent incomprehensible gibberish that me and co-worker can agree is telling em. That's right...!!! We gurgle as we wash our face and hands over loud running water.
Next time I have a dream where I mess up I will try that...I will act like I am at work and mutter something that even I don't understand. Then we will see who the enemy is.
BTW , Jack you ordered Corporeal Santiago with extra mustard.... did'nt you did'nt you !!!!
Soon and very soon fans of two of three legendary hit makers will ques up to theaters to see here and watch them play. Lines not seen since the late 80's will be wrapped around a city block. Lines of well dressed couples waiting to see. Since we are talking musicians and since each of these three hit makes have gone on to that great band stage in the sky, quite naturally we are speaking metaphorically. We are talking movies, not live musical concerts. And if you are not as hip as this writer assumes you to be, lets let you in on a lil' secret: we are talking about James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis. While Get On Up (starring Cadwick Bossman as James Brown) is scheduled to be released August 1, 2014, the biopic on Jimi Hendrix (All Is By My Side) directed by John Ridley will first hit the festival circuit starting this fall at SXSW. Finally Don Cheadle's debut as both director and star as Miles Davis in Miles Ahead is still in its infancy: production recently shook its first leg in Cincinnati.
ITS A FAMILY AFFAIR
Word is that while Don Cheadle has the blessing of members of Davis' family, producers of (ALL IS BY MY SIDE on Jimi Hendrix) had the proverbial door slammed in their faces when they went knocking for the rights to reproduce some of Jimi's songs. That sucks, yet Darko Entertainment assure that their focus on the early years (in England) are just as important. Probably so, since there it was in Europe that Hendrix landed his first recording deal. And it was in Europe where legendary events along side Eric Clapton and The Who were suppose to have taken place. Most African American viewers who know that Jimi did initially play the 'chitlin circuit' along with the famed Isley Brothers have come to garnish a distaste of having bio told about other African Americans by mainstream teams. Did anybody ask Spike Lee what he though? I'm just asking. Of course I'm joking. But its no laughing matter when the purse come into play. Nonetheless, keep in mind that Andre Benjamin (oh, you know him as Andre 3000 of the famed Atlanta based OUTKAST) is scheduled to weld a heavy ax (the legendary trademark stratocaster) on the scene. Despite the drama and critiques sure to come, Hendrix belongs to the family of rock and roll just as much as any ethic group. Hendrix who died at 27 and became an honored member of 'the 27 club' described the sound of his first recorded album in this manner: "We don't want to be classed in any category ... If it must have a tag, I'd like it to be called, 'Free Feeling'. It's a mixture of rock, freak-out, rave and blues" .
THREE PART HARMONY
Universal or not, critic and audiences alike may be ready to toss musical bios as failed attempts to lump the lives of legend like these the way of musicals themselves. Biographical stories are but sketches of a musician's life. Movies (by in large) unlike lives lived are often told in three parts. Fans can barely tolerate a facsimile of Jimi Hendrix short rise to fame followed by an untimely demise, but imagine a reduction of Miles life from the monumental annals of Be Bop to Jazz Fusion being reduced to a two hour feature film. Don Cheadle seems wise to side step that trap. Word on the street is he, Steve Baigelman and others will focus this sketch on the five year period called “the silent years” while Miles took a break from production and performance. Beigelman shares writing credit with Jex Butterworth on Get On Up.
Unlike the wiser choice exemplified by Cheadle, and team, a gut reaction to the trailers we have seen of GET ON UP, director Taylor Tate seems ready to take a chance and die the death of over simplification. What the trailer seems to suggest is an all star constellation with Dan Akroyd, Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Jill Scott with Cadwick Bossman. One thinks of The Help and not to mention the formulaic Tyler Perry movies where comedy is often the favored sun in the center of the universe of an assembly of an all black cast. One white or two sprinkle in to become the foil of racial canned laughter. But surprises can happen. Can Cadwick Bossmanl pull from the script the legends of a man called the 'God Father of Soul', 'Mr Dynamite', 'Soul Brother Number 1' and a man who while he forbid the use of drugs in his bands, himself became a parody as a man ruled by cocaine, painkiller and a history of run ins with the law?
ITS A MAN'S WORLD
There is one troubling aspect that any film maker focusing on the life of musicians who become popular enough to make it to the hall of fame. That aspect is their relationship with women. As to Miles, author Peal Cleage wrote critical book entitled MAD AT MILES. In it she lambasted the iconic status bestowed on him. Cleage rather forceful injected into Miles' circles of praise the long documented aspects of spousal abuse Miles subjected Cicely Tyson to during their decade long marriage. One can be sure MILES AHEAD will not go without these reminders coming to the forefront. Such issues are among the cultural baggage that also resonate with James Brown latter years. Brown reputation as a self made man became tarnished with several arrests due to his domestic squabbles. Only Jimi Hendrix's short time on the pedestal of fame seems to be absent 'egg in the face'. Then again....we have yet to see if his first hit song HEY,JOE carried any autobiographical revelations..
The camera often times accompanies me. Even when I do not have my camera with me, I am thinking in/of images.Objects seem to beckon the eye to come play. Seeing is a development that can be haunting.
Matt Damon once stated that he was trying to persuade the director Steven Soderbergh to reconsider his decision to leave film making and pursue painting . Damon stated that in his efforts he referenced a director who although in his 70's rose with a gusto to make it to the set. Soderberg is supposed to have replied, "yeah that would be Clint Eastwood and Clint is a story teller. I am not a story teller, I like form".
Despite the veracity of this story it is very telling about film makers and art and form. I can hardly contain myself when I read that an acclaimed director offered such a revealing aspect about the passion and focus one must recognize about his motivations and how they differ from another's. I began to wonder what other movie directors pursued painting as well.
Alfred Hitchcock was an avid storyboard user. David Lynch wrote one book that I know of where he elaborate on his panting (see CATCHING THE BIG FISH: MEDITATION CONSCIOUSNESS AND CREATIVITY. I also know that Kathryn Bigelow of THE HURT LOCKER and ZERO DARK THIRTY was a sculpture before delving into film making. Did they find one pursuit informed the other?
Lynch states in CATCHING THE BIG FISH that film is a language and that it is different from words. Yep, I can see that. Because actors must say what they feel. We are watching images rather than imaging while reading. Still few accomplished actors can convey an idea with through facial expression. If we follow Damon's reasoning, he knows Sonderberg is a director who encourages him. They have worked on Ocean Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen. They also worked on together on the BOURNE franchise. I guess what Damon reveals about acting is that actors enjoy being the canvas of some directors.
I wonder if objects enjoy being looked upon by some photographers.
In approximately 17 days on August 1, will turn 55 years old. Its been a long road full of mistakes and hard-hotheadedness that I no more regret as I do query over. However one plaguing issue that keep me wondering is how do I make sure the last next 30 or so years are the best in my life.
This device this laptop is my best friend right now. many of you rely on your phones but for me, my constant companion is still my laptop. It stands to reason because whereas I once admonished myself for staying one step (perhaps two) behind the horde, I enjoy giving the market experts the middle finger for their planned obsolescence. ts a fact that most of us are suckered into "keeping up with the Jones".
KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES
While this expression no longer signals the drive one neighbor has to outdoor the next, it served those of use well back in the 1970 and beyond when credit card was the unrecognized evil of the working poor. Indeed working poor probable is out of date. Sociologist used to help us with monitor ourselves. Now wall street has us by our noses. So I enjoy being poor because it keeps me closer to knowledge. Many are duped to take their poverty to GOD. But he moved on to another galaxy and many American built that vessel for him. Israel helped. Together these two nations have destroyed God's home. The bosom of novice believers like me burst with contradictions we could no longer stomach. I stood for my last time on the church steps and while I will no longer shame his so-called house, I waved good-bye to the ship carrying him into a realm where my ignorance can not reach.
GOD MOVED ON
I am going try a new faith were God is called on less and I spend more time calling mankind for his lies that kept me wanting in or a failed system. Systems are built but thy grow old. Take the education I received.The government I was taught existed, and the beauty of capitalism. Each one has cracks so large in them, that only a fool would try to ignore them. This does not mean toss the baby out with the bath water (another old term) however it does mean that a reexamination is due. I am running hand along the crevices and each crumb that falls I focus on. I am more like the crumb than the sum total of the whole. There I will focus my next 30. How do I exist in a failing system. There I can imagine myself. I can plot a course Before the fat lady signs.
One man said to the other, I cant run no further. 'When the air you breath is polluted with exhaust and your closets kin lies to worse than the man, where else can you run"? The man sat on his rickety porch and that was when his overalls caught a bit of the evening breeze. He had been living up north working for a factory. When that factory closed he went to another until that one moved to somewhere in China he could not pronounce.
He took a pinch of tobacco from his pouch, it was tightly rolled deep in his overalls pocket. He took it. squeezed it between fingers long and wrinkled from work, loaded up his corn cob pipe and as he reached down to strike a match. He remembered a lie his relatives told him. "They said I was welcomed home but that was another lie". He forgot someone was there sitting beside him with a tape recorder on.
Oh, son I drifted off....old man will do that..."
That's alright, sir.You were telling me about the air.
This man, the one with the recorded there had come from the EPA as part of a fact finding mission. The coal ash that has been dumped across the road was starting to cause a stink for the EPA back in Washington, DC and this guy..this young white guy had stopped by to ask some questions,
Where you when the county turned 'black'? he asked the old man with the corn cob pipe.
Oh, I was in Birmingham back then, had left these hills in search of work. That was before I pushed on up to Cleveland? Has caught the love bug following a pretty gal on up north. Yep, pretty lil' gurl named Ellen"
The county had always been black back in the early 1900s but that was when the soil was so fertile, it could turn a crop faster than the harvest could be loaded. After slavery, white moved on and left farming to the sharecroppers.
The old man pulled hard on the pipe and a yellowish glow rose from the inside. Just long enough to match the sunset that was low...
Sir, can I come back tomorrow, the white man with the tape recorder asked?
Sho....I aint going no where...families lies like that heap of coal ash. I cant turn back now, no where else left to run....he said.....smiling.
They both rose shook hands and the white man left. He and his tape recorder.
