Erykah Badu: Window Seat

Remarks:

Ms Badu walks through Dallas where President Kennedy was shot.

Lyrics:

so, presently I’m standing
here right now
you’re so demanding
tell me what you want from me
concluding
concentrating on my music, lover and my babies
makes me wanna ask the lady for a ticket outta town…

so can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a ticket outta town
a look around
and a safe touch down
can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a chance to fly
a chance to cry
and a long bye bye..

but I need you to want me
I need you to miss me
I need your attention, yes
I need you next me
I need someone to clap for me
I need your direction
somebody say come back
come back baby come back
I want you to need me
come back come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back

so, in my mind I’m tusslin’
back and forth ‘tween here and hustlin’
I don’t wanna time travel no mo
I wanna be here
I’m thinking
on this porch I’m rockin’
back and forth light lightning hopkins
if anybody speak to scotty
tell him beam me up..

so can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a ticket outta town
a look around
and a safe touch down
can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a chance to fly
a chance to cry
and a long bye bye..

but I need you to miss me
I need somebody come get me
I need your attention
I need your energy
I need someone to clap me
I need your direction

somebody say come back
come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back

but can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a ticket outta town
a look around
and a safe touch down…

I just wanna chance to fly
a chance to cry
and a long bye bye…

They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups, less guilt to swallow. They are us. This is what we have become. Afraid to respect the individual. A single person within a circumstance can move one to change. To love ourself. To evolve.

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Janelle Monae: Tightrope

Remarks:

I have never been a big Janelle Monae fan, but I like this song.

Lyrics:

Whoaaa
Another day
I take your pain away

Some people talk about ya
Like they know all about ya
When you get down they doubt ya
And when you dip it on the scene
Yeah they talkin’ bout it
Cause they can’t dip on the scene
Whatcha talk about it
T-t-t-talkin’ bout it
When you get elevated,
They love it or they hate it
You dance up on them haters
Keep getting funky on the scene
Why they jumpin’ round ya
They trying to take all your dreams
But you can’t allow it

Cause baby whether you’re high or low
Whether you’re high or low
You gotta tip on the tightrope
(Tip, tip on it)
T-t-t-tip on the tightrope
(Tip, tip on it)

Baby, baby, baby

Whether you’re high or low
(High or low)
Baby whether you’re high or low
(High or low)
You got to tip on the tightrope
(Tip, tip on it)
Now let me see you do the tightrope
(Tip, tip on it)
And I’m still tippin’ on it

See I’m not walkin’ on it
Or tryin to run around it
This ain’t no acrobatics
You either follow or you lead, yeah

I’m talkin’ bout you,
I’ll keep on blaming the machine, yeah
I’m talkin’ bout it,
T-t-t-talkin’ bout it
I can’t complain about it
I gotta keep my balance

And just keep dancin on it
We gettin funky on the scene

Yeah you know about it,
Like a star on the screen
Watch me tip all on it

Then baby whether I’m high or low
(High or low)
Baby whether you’re high or low
(High or low)
You gotta tip on the tightrope
(Tip, tip on it)
Yeah, tip on the tightrope
(Tip, tip on it)

Baby, baby, baby

Whether you’re high or low
(High or low)
Baby whether you’re high or low
(High or low)
Tip on the tightrope
(Tip, tip on it)
Baby let me see you tight rope
(Tip, tip on it)
And I’m still tippin’ on it

Big Boi
You gotta keep your balance
Or you fall into the gap
It’s a challenge but I manage
Cause I’m cautious with the strap
No damage to your cameras damn I thought that
Can I passy
Why you don’t want no friction
Like the back of a matchbook
That I pass as I will forward you
And your MacBook
Clothes shows will shut you down
Before we go-go backwards
Act up, and whether we high or low
We gonna get back-up
Like the dow jones and nasdaq
Sorta like a thong in an ass crack,
Come on

I tip on alligators and little rattle snakers
But I’m another flavor
Something like a terminator
Ain’t no equivocating
I fight for what I believe
Why you talkin’ bout it
S-s-she’s talkin’ bout it
Some callin me a sinner
Some callin me a winner
I’m callin you to dinner
And you know exactly what I mean,

Yeah I’m talkin bout you
You can rock or you can leave
Watch me tip without you

N-N-Now whether I’m high or low
(High or low)
Whether I’m high or low
(High or low)
I’m gonna tip on the tightrope
(Tip, tip on it)
MMMMMM
(Tip, tip on it)

Baby, baby, baby
Whether I’m high or low
Goblogtainment
(High or low)
High or low
(High or low)
I got to tip on the tightrope
(Tip, tip on it)
Now baby tip on the tightrope

You can’t get too high
(You can’t get too high)
I said you can’t get too low
(We can’t get too low)
Cause you get too high
(You can’t get too high)
No you’ll surely be low
(No, you’ll surely be low)
1, 2, 3, Ho!

Yeah, yeah
Now shut up, yeah
Yeah, Now put some voodoo on it
Ladies and Gentlemen the funky is on section in the tribalist
Yeah, OH
We call that classy brass

Ohhhhhhh
OH!

Do you mind?
If I play the ukulele
Just like a little lady
Do you mind?
If I play the ukulele
Just like a little lady
As I play the ukulele
If I play my ukulele
Just like a little lady

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Pay No Attention to the Slurs in FRONT of the Curtain….

The following is taken from a wonderful post by Ankhesen Mie about the tea baggers, edited down to 500 words by me:

Protesters go spitting and hurling racial slurs and surprise, surprise, we’re told not to pay attention. It’s an “isolated incident”. It doesn’t “mean” anything.

Yeah… and we’ve never heard that one before. As blogger Field Negro writes:

Poor James Clayburn, I saw my man on CNN this evening and he still looked scared. He told Wolf Blitzer that he was having flashbacks to those civil rights days. He said that he looked in the eyes of the tea baggers and saw the same hatred he saw back then. Yeah, that kind of hate just doesn’t happen overnight with the passing of a bill, Jim. No sir, that hate has been there all along. It’s just been hiding under the surface and waiting to come out.

In the meantime, I’m having flashbacks of my own.  Flashbacks to teary, screamy temper tantrums in 2008 – you all remember 2008, don’t you? Remember all the “isolated incidents and comments” back then? All that racist bullshit that wasn’t “really racist” and so we weren’t supposed to really talk about it or even show it on TV in-depth? You recall that “tiny, insignificant minority” of white folks we were supposed to simply laugh at and pretend didn’t really exist? Did you really think those people just vanished off the face of the earth?

And white people, I’m just… you know… I’m… *shakes head*… I’m actually quite proud of some of you.

If I go to Google right now and type in “tea party racist”, I will see a lot of white folks calling the Tea Party out. And they’re not talking that “politically incorrect” or “highly inappropriate” shit – they’re calling it racist and not trying to excuse or defend it in any way. And kids, that’s how you deal with racism. You call it out; you name it accurately and you expose it. You denounce it unequivocally and then you fight back.

These are not children, folks; ignoring their bad behavior won’t make it go away.

So from hereon out, white folks, I don’t want to hear any more, “Well, yeah… but you have to understand…” nonsense. Those are not fighting words. Those are roll-over-and-surrender words. So are “isolated incidents”. And “we’re not all like that” – we’re not talking about all of you. We’re talking about your racists, and we’re talking about all of them. So if you’re thinking strictly KKK, Stormfront, and neo-Nazis, you need to quit bullshittin’ and start accepting the unpleasant reality of things.

The Tea Party has revealed one of the ugliest faces of Average White America for all the world to see.

It has confirmed the often derailed testaments of POC about racism in America. It has confirmed every acrimonious observation from other nations about the so-called “Ugly American”. It has aired Average White America’s dirty laundry, flung wide its closet doors and unleashed all its skeletons.

Read the whole post here.

See also:

• Obama and racism:
  • This is not like Clinton or Bush
  • Obama and the racist right
  • That chimp cartoon
• “You are the one keeping racism alive”
• “Get over it”

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Monica: Everything to Me

Remarks:

Deep down I wanted to post “Silly” by Deniece Williams – but I did that twice already! So instead here is Monica’s take-off on the song (not a cover, though). It is currently #9 on the American R&B charts.

Lyrics:

Boy if you ever left my
My Side
It be like taking the
Sun from the sky
I’d probably die without
You in my life cause I need you to shine shine your light

Your Everything to me ehh
The air that I breath ohh
You shine so I see whhoo
Your everything to me

I cant repay you
For all that you’ve done
Always come first and second
To none the love
You give me is equal to ten
My peace my joy
Are my my strength ohhha

You’re everything to me
The air that I breathe ohh
I shine so I see
You’re everything to me

Ohh
Ohh
Ohh
Ohhhhhhhhoh

See hea
I need you uh
I need you uh
I need you
Woha ahh
Ahyyyyyyyyyyy
Ohhoh

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Alice in Wonderland (2010)

“Alice in Wonderful” (2010) is the second Disney film of that name, this one directed by Tim Burton, who did “Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993). Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter. Unlike the first Alice film by Disney in 1951, which used straight animation, this one uses live actors with computers drawing in the background and even parts of the characters. It also features an older Alice, 19 (played by Mia Wasikowska) who is faced with a Wonderland that has become dark and evil.

I loved the Alice books and I loved “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, so I was looking forward to this film. I thought it could be a masterpiece. Sadly, it is not. While the acting, the sets, the special effects and the costumes were all great the plot was not.

The plot was tired. It is the very same plot you see in Star Wars, the Hobbit and the Wizard of Oz: our hero is an ordinary person who finds himself fighting against some great, terrible evil power. On his way to face said evil power he gathers an odd set of companions and a bit of magic power.

So in place of Chewbacca or the Scarecrow you have the Mad Hatter. In place of the Force or ruby slippers or a ring you have a vorpal sword. In place of Darth Vader and the Death Star you have the Queen of Hearts and the Jabberwocky. Blah blah blah.

A plot like that has plenty of built-in suspense, but I was never in suspense. I blame the writers for that.

So the plot seemed weak and tired and not-again. I felt like I was watching cable television on a large screen. It would make great late-night television. Sorry to say, but it should have gone straight to DVD.

I saw it in 3-D: they give you special glasses for that. That was a waste too – the film did not gain much by being in 3-D. I am glad I did not pay even more to see it at an IMAX theatre.

It is a shame because Tim Burton certainly has the imagination and the right spirit to make a great Alice film. It being Tim Burton I expected a dark Alice but I also expected to be surprised and wowed, like I was with “Nightmare Before Christmas”.

Johnny Depp was good. I particularly liked Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. She was always holding up her hands and had this wide-eyed stare and kept telling us she took a vow not to use violence – even as she let her subjects do their worst to the forces of the Red Queen.

The closing scene was a nice touch – reminding you that the earth itself is a wonderland.

You also get to see a bandersnatch. I do not remember Tenniel ever drawing one for the Alice books. Tweedledee and Tweedledum were played by the same actor, by the way, not by twins.

See also:

• Johnny Depp

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Gratuitous Obama Picture #8

I saw this on Jack & Jill Politics. It shows President Obama hugging retiring White House butler James Ramsey on January 25th 2010.

Michelle Obama comments:

Mr. Ramsey side note – he’s worked for the White House for 40 years and was supposed to retire when the Bushes left but wanted to extend working at the White House so that he could serve the Obamas as long as he could. I read last year that several of the scheduled retiring usher staff did the same thing because they’ve been treated so well by the Obamas and really don’t want to retire now….I think stamina may be the only factor for them leaving at this point….I’m sure the pace gets difficult over time. Desiree Rogers said last year in the Washington Post that some older staff had tears in their eyes when she was asking for their input, and they told her that no one ever asked that from them before or asked for their opinion.

See also:

• Gratuitous Obama Picture #1
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #2
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #3
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #4
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #5
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #6
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #7

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The 2010 Haiti earthquake

In Haiti the 2010s opened with utter tragedy: last week on Tuesday January 12th 2010 at 21:53 GMT the strongest Caribbean earthquake in over 60 years struck Haiti. In the first six days 70,000 bodies were found and, unnamed, have been put into mass graves.

Up to 200,000 are feared dead.  That would make it the deadliest natural disaster the world has seen since the tsunami in 2004, which killed 230,000.

The earthquake, measuring 7.0, struck not far from the capital, Port-au-Prince. That is a bad quake, but in a richer, better built city only a few dozen would have died. Even so, the quake killed few outright: instead people have been dying of their injuries because the damage has kept help from reaching them in time.

It destroyed 80% of the buildings in the capital, among them the president’s palace, government buildings, the cathedral, the United Nations mission, the main prison, most of the hospitals, even the main one. The archbishop was killed, so was the head of the UN mission, but not the president and his wife. Surprisingly, those living in shanty towns were less affected: a tin roof falling on you is not as deadly as concrete.

It knocked out the seaport and blocked all the roads, though main roads in the capital are now clear.

The airport is still open but, with only one runway and a damaged air traffic control tower, it is slow going.

People are living in tents and cars: the buildings are no longer safe.

To give you an idea of the scale, at 70,000 dead it is already 15 times worse than 9/11 and Katrina put together.

It is so bad that it is beyond the power of even television to overstate. The smell of dead bodies is everywhere.

America is sending 10,000 troops and air dropping food and water. Many other countries are sending help too, but the damage means getting that help to people will be slow.

The Americans will probably find themselves keeping law and order as well: the government is not in control of the country and it is too much for the police. People are desperate for food and water. On top of all that, 3,000 have escaped from prison, among them infamous gang leaders.

Both France and America will stop sending Haitians back to Haiti for a time. Senegal has offered free land for Haitians who move there!

Haiti has had few earthquakes over the past 40 years. Too few: the fault line that it lies on was locked, the strain on it building to dangerous levels. It was ovedue for a big one of just this size.

Pat Robertson, an American television preacher, saw it differently:

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and the people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. And they (Haitians) got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the French.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal!”

Postscript: The earthquake killed 159,000, making it the second deadliest natural disaster of the past 30 years and the worst earthquake on record in the Americas.

See also:

• CNN: How to help
• Haiti: a brief history

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Sade: Soldier of Love

Remarks:

Sade’s first new song in eight years. It sounded strange when I first heard it, but it has grown on me.  Hardly one of her best, but I like it. It is already up to #15 on the American R&B chart – way better than “Is It a Crime”, which I featured in this space two weeks ago.

Lyrics:

I’ve lost the use of my heart
But I’m still alive
Still looking for the life
The endless pool on the other side
It’s a wild wild west
I’m doing my best

I’m at the borderline of my faith,
I’m at the hinterland of my devotion
In the frontline of this battle of mine
But I’m still alive

I’m a soldier of love.
Every day and night
I’m soldier of love
All the days of my life

I’ve been torn up inside (oh!)
I’ve been left behind (oh!)
So I ride
I have the will to survive

In the wild wild west,
Trying my hardest
Doing my best
To stay alive

I am love’s soldier!

I wait for the sound
(oooh oohhh)

I know that love will come (that love will come)
Turn it all around

I’m a soldier of love (soldier of love)
Every day and night
Sade Soldier Of Love lyrics found on
I’m a soldier of love
All the days of my life

I am lost
But I don’t doubt (oh!)
So I ride
I have the will to survive

In the wild wild west,
Trying my hardest
Doing my best
To stay alive

I am love’s soldier!

I wait for the sound

I know that love will come
I know that love will come
Turn it all around

I’m a soldier of love
I’m a soldier

Still waiting for love to come
Turn it all around
Still waiting for love to come
Turn it all around
Still waiting for love to come
Turn it all around
Still waiting for love to come
Turn it all around

I’m a soldier of love
I’m a soldier

Still waiting for love to come
Turn it all around
Still waiting for love to come
Turn it all around
Still waiting for love to come
Turn it all around

Still waiting for love to come

See also:

• Sade: Feel No Pain
• Sade: Is it a Crime

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Black Brazil in the black gringo gaze

Capoeira: gringotastic!

This is my summary of “Tourism Black and Blues” by Ana Paula da Silva, a PhD in anthropology who currently teaches at the University of São Paulo as a post-doctoral fellow. She is also a gringo watcher and wife of commenter Thaddeus Blanchette:

English-speaking media is so strong in the world that how Black American tourists see Brazil affects how Black Brazil sees itself. Black Brazil sees itself partly through black gringo eyes.

Tour operators in America use two things to draw blacks to see Brazil: the beautiful and supposedly easy women of Rio and the African roots of the black city of Salvador in the north-east.

The women: Black American men tend to see Brazilian women as more natural, easy-going, sexy and less overweight than their own women back home. Which is strange: Brazilian women, in fact, use more cosmetic surgery and are more uptight about sex – and many are overweight. Brazilian men would also be surprised to learn that Brazilian women do not stand up to them.

African roots: Surely the heritage tourists who come to see Brazil’s black culture first-hand are more serious. Well, no:

1. Few bother to learn its history or read its great writers.
2. They tend to see Black Brazil as somehow part of their own history even though it never was – it is a completely separate branch of the African Diaspora.
3. They apply their own ideas of what is truly “African” to Brazil. That determines what they see and know, like capoeira, but not, say, black symbolist poets like Cruz e Souza.

All this gives them a rather odd picture of Brazil.

If Black America were viewed the same way there would be no Richard Wright or Malcolm X – because who needs to know the history and the literature? Jazz would be dismissed because it has no “African” beat. Black Baptist churches would be seen as sell-outs for not worshipping African gods. The Gullah of the Carolina Sea Islands would be the “true” Black America because its culture is more purely African.

Black Americans, by overvaluing what is “African” in Brazilian culture, undervalue what is Brazilian, what is special, what is new and now. As if Brazil was stuck in 1600.

You could argue that tourists do this all over the world: what tourist ever sees the “true” Japan or the “true” Greece? Well, yes. But the trouble comes when Black Americans go back home and help to shape America’s idea of what Brazil is like, particularly of Black Brazil. That in turn gets pumped out to the whole world and so comes all the way back to Brazil itself and its blacks.

Blacks may not be particularly powerful within America itself, but because they live in the land of the world’s biggest media machine, their ideas about blackness get carried all over the world, shaping how blacks everywhere see themselves.

For the blacks of Brazil this means that the richness of their history and culture has to fight against whatever Black Americans see as more “truly black”.

Three icons of the Black Brazil tourists know little about: Cruz e Souza, Abdias do Nascimento and Milton Santos.

See also:

• O Mangue:Tourism Black and Blues – read the whole article
• Brazil
• Afro-Latinos – two-thirds live in Brazil
• stereotype
• the single story
• my thing for Brazil
• white gaze

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