my passion...your entertainment
Vitae…Verba…Cruorem…Fluo…
meaning: one who dissipates resources foolishly and self-indulgently…
as in: i just spent today’s writing time scrounging for and playing with…free fonts…earlier this week it was…mashup mixes…internets, you damned dirty whore…you’ve turned me into a wastrel…
ms scribe had the most interesting observstion during super bowl halftime:
the stones have come a long way…since altamont…
went to a play this weekend…has me thinking…what denotes a body of work…
august wilson’s ten plays…written over thirty years…all focused on chronicling the black american experience…
i don’t know much about playwriting…and ten full length works in any field of writing is respectable…but what makes wilson’s work extrordinary…
tennessee williams wrote nearly a hundred plays…and a handful of movies…mamet, over twenty, a couple of books, and a solid collection of movies…neil simon, 28 plays…suzan-lori parks, 10 and counting…arthur miller, over twenty…
you get the point…
wilson’s achievement is certainly not about the numbers…while there is a tendancy in some critical circles for an ambitious attempt to be hearlded as great work…simply because it’s by/about Black Folk…by all standards of technique and style…wilson’s work warrants notice…
if quantity is irrelevant…and critical favoritism is balanced by the law of averages…it then becomes a question of content…
before wilson’s ten play cycle, there was scant examination of the black american experience…from a black american perspective…okay, there was raisin in the sun…
to look at that experience as it has evolved across a century…the so called american century…is an achievement…and wilson has been honest…imaginative…thorough…and a consumate craftsman…which is paramount…
all of this leads me to an examination of…personal goals/creative values/objectives…yes…there is a specific number of books i want to write…minimum…don’t ask, i won’t tell…again, that’s irrelevant…more to the point…what is my role as a…Black Writer…
sure…i want to write about the experience of being a young black male in america…especially…but lets be clear…im not interested in writing the next native son or invisible man…it’s been done…and by better writers than me…
besides…i don’t want to be defined only by the color of my skin…isnt that what the civil rights movement was all about…im more than just Black…the world is bigger than race…yes it is signifcant…but i refuse to be boxed in by it…that’s a trap…and better people than i have been laid low by it…
[ramblings about the baseball off-season and the upcomming season…postponed…for a later date…consider this your rain check…]
he would have been 91 this year…
why is bill important to me…he…his work…gave me the key…
nothing is true…everything is possible…
when you grasp the enormous truth of these six words…freedom is close at hand…
he would have been 91 this year…
why is bill important to me…he…his work…gave me the key…
nothing is true…everything is possible…
when you grasp the enormous truth of these six words…freedom is close at hand…
not enough, apparently…
i was mostly silent last year while bush and co were imploding…i figure kicking a man while he’s down is a waste of time…one of the many reasons why i could never be a republican…
meanwhile…
my best and oldest friend…is a virulent republican…and he has given me cause to climb that tree…again… as usual, our latest debate revolved around iraq…and after i dropped these bombs on him about how the three henchmen have wanted saddam‘s ass for at least ten years…his response was to tell me what a great friend i am for keeping him from becoming complacent…because his favorite president has seen so much…ahem…success lately…and he told me he would get back to me about all that other stuff…
that was when i decided that for the rest of bush’s term i would hammer home every misstep…every case of misplaced loyalty…and every occurance of bureaucratic incompetence…all so my friend can have a full list of why george bush has been a nightmare for america…
today’s bush bash…we’ve spent over two hundred billion dollars to…ahem…rebuild iraq…and not one mention in the state of the union about rebuilding new orleans…
on to more pleasant matters…
i’m obsesed with the whole almanac thing…so much so…i’ve created my own…it’s a combination of stuff from the farmer’s almanac…goofy shit i just made up…not so random birthdays of influential folks…and other flotsam…check it out while you can…i don’t know how long this current mania will last…