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Monday, Sept. 29, 2003 / 10:04 p.m. ~In Which I Ramble, Quite Inarticulately, About Racism and the Blues (and "Temptation Island 3")~ It does seem to take a lot more effort, a lot more muscle movement, to smile than to frown. No, no reason to note that, except I noticed a frown earlier, my mouth turning down at the corners, and realized what great effort it took to change it. I must have reason. But other thoughts are swirly in my head right now, swirly because of exhaustion (the job, being at the job, wears me out - it's so hard to go there every day - end of today, Q said, "See you bright and early tomorrow morning", and I just said, "Do we have to do it all again? Tomorrow? We have to come back?"), and Merlot, and food. I'm sated. "Temptation Island 3". Where do I begin? Good, good, stuff, sort of reality blending into fine fictional romance and tragedy, not really knowing how much is real, how much is edited, manufactured by production, but the tropical locale, the beautiful bodies, the hair, the muscles, the tattoos, the heartbreak, the long, long pauses while we waited for Stephanie to form the words to tell Anthony, while we waited for Melissa to tell Michael she couldn't believe what she saw on the videotape, or what she heard, and what in the holy hell did he say?!?!?!? We never got to hear. And Kristin and Eric, happy together, or so we're led to believe, and Kara and Jason, and his tattoos, still in Vegas, so the epilogue tells us. And thank god for that epilogue. I had just said, "Give us an epilogue!", and there it was, in text at the bottom of the screen, who's still together, who's not. Ah, but the lovely women, Stephanie and those Asian looking eyes, the big pouty lips, and Melissa with the hair, the eyes, the lips, the body, these were some beautiful women. The men didn't turn me on as much as they did. Alas, it is over now. As is Summer. We still have "Survivor" for our tropical fix, but those people will be malnourished and dirty, not well fed and in sensual bliss. It's truly a vicarious life I live, and right now I don't mind at all. The other thing on my mind is the Blues, as in the series which began on PBS last night. It's on now, the Wim Wenders directed episode, but I'm here, not in front of TV. Last night's, "Feel Like Going Home", directed by Scorsese himself, was really good, I thought, despite what EW thought, but it left me with several different impressions. One, I love the blues, I always have. I've always loved soul music too, real down and dirty, Aretha and James, yet I've always felt like I shouldn't. Like it's not my music, it's not my right. So much that is black culture feels like it's not meant to be shared, or appreciated by whites, as whites oppressed blacks for so long, brought them here, to this foreign land to work the land, enslaved them, and in their strife, they held themselves together with their culture, and through their memories created new culture, and the blues was born of that. It's not for whites, but so many of us appreciate it, feel it inside ourselves. And one person said last night that white people get the blues too, and I say yes, brother, we do. And I say I am of European heritage, and British, and Russian Jew even, and yet I don't celebrate that culture, or those cultures, I don't feel the need to close myself off from what I might open myself up to. This is hard to put into words, but as oppressed as I've felt (denied? demeaned?), as a white person, as much as I've been told flat out I don't know the details of black culture, and I should just be white and mind my own business, if anything, I feel a part of human culture. As much as people consistently disappoint me, and Southern Black Christian racists disgust me, and nearly make me want to despise the whole race, nearly, very nearly, being surrounded by their hatred of white people every day, I feel an innate love of humankind, and all the beauty that we've created. From Mozart and his concerti, to Harry Belafonte, to the Gipsy Kings, and Bach, James Brown, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Simon and Garfunkel, Dolly Parton, and Johnny Cash, and everything imaginable in between. Especially, ESPECIALLY, when it comes to music, it is all of ours, it is human survival to create beauty that can uplift us, stir our souls. If I create music it is not white music, it is not my culture, it is music, and I should share it with the world. So, there, last night, was one old black man telling us that white people have every right to claim the blues, and Ali Farka Toure, whom I've only recently discovered, telling a young black man, a searcher of his own past, that there are no black Americans, there are only black Africans living in America. But this seemed so confusing to me. Like a desire for segregation, not just a desire to retain the culture of the Africans who were removed from their land, but a refusal to believe that they have made lives for themselves in America, and that America is filled with people who ALL, every last one of us, came from someplace else. There are very few native peoples here anymore. Very few, and only they can claim this country as their own by heritage. Yet, it is our country, all of us, and we share everything we create for our own pleasure here. Look at young white boys in suburbia dressing like black rappers. Look at Bonnie Raitt singing the blues. If we understand where it came from, if we know the pain that bore such beauty, and we learn that there were codes, that the man wasn't talking about his woman treating him wrong, but it was his boss, if we take that all in, learn what it really was, we can still love it as we did, but it can be ours, all of ours, or we can share in its joy, its creation, its pleasure, for music and art exist for our pleasure. It's like Digable Planets' "Blowout Comb", and how I felt when I sat with the liner notes, or my Public Enemy album, and once I read those lyrics how I felt that this music was anti-me, this wasn't for me at all, but I loved it, so how do I reconcile that? I still mean to sell the Public Enemy, I don't want it anymore, but Digable Planets is more like (black) pride, rather than hatred. It's the wine, this is totally incoherent and rambling, I know. I guess I just feel like there is a collective unconscious, and that in that portion of all of us we all exist. And I feel the blues when I hear it, and when I see this amazing archival film footage of black people in the South, singing and playing music, and dancing, I feel like I know it. And I couldn't be more of a European American. I think in this it's important to let down the guards, to remember Alan Lomax with his tape recorder taping all these musicians, to know he was white as I, and that music and art cross boundaries, and Ali Farka Toure, despite your two wives, or your message of black heritage and appreciation, I enjoy your music, and I'm not sure you'd want me to. But my appreciation may help you live as you do with your wives and your homes and cars, a man of wealth in your country. There is hypocrisy and racism everywhere, but we're all just folks. And it amazes me that most of the racism I see is reverse. I don't know, I really don't. But I saw Muddy Waters perform a few years before he died, and hearing him, and John Lee Hooker, and, Robert Johnson, and recognizing their influences on some of my favorite 'white' music ever, by Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones, blows me away, all of it. It touches me someplace deep inside myself, like old Appalachian music too. Bluegrass. Roots music, any of it. Tribal. It must be part of that collective unconscious, like old memories of past lives. But my point here is that I don't want surprise when I admit to my musical passions, or anger towards me, or to be told that it's not for me, I am not allowed to enjoy it. What if we all just listened and closed our eyes? What if we couldn't see what colors we all are? Someone plays and we are simply allowed to feel the way it makes us feel, or swing and sway, or pop, or rock and roll, and it's all just okay because we're people enjoying being alive? What if. I want to love all people, and it would be easier than hating, but the hatred is a reflection of what is directed towards me or around me, and it's easier to withdraw than to accept that there is so little acceptance. I love that Scorsese has decided to explore this musical style, and to bring it to the masses (though who is watching PBS is probably not the masses, unfortunately). God, I love it - know what it is? It's primal. There's something in it, that's just deeply human. Cost of the War in Iraq
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