Guests
by Nelson George, December 5, 2008 9:49 AM
I had breakfast with my two oldest nieces earlier this week. One is 28 and is in love with her husband. That's the good news. The bad is that he has a low-paying security guard job, which has forced them to live with his family in an overcrowded, two-story house. Apparently, between siblings, cousins, and children, there are 11 people in the house. It sounds chaotic. She wants to find a job, but everyone else in the house wants her to stay home to babysit the kids so they can work. It is a frustrating, confined world my oldest niece married into. My middle niece, now 22, is in college after transferring from another. In the process she lost quite a few credits and a lot of confidence. The transfer has everything to do with a man. She'd moved in with a Navy man, which ended badly, and now she's trying to get refocused on school. She wants a part-time job, but so does every other student in her college. Pickings aren't just been slim — they're non-existent. Sitting with them, I wanted to offer some encouragement and hope. Yes, we are all proud that there's a black President. It is a huge, historic deal. But my two oldest nieces, now young women in their 20s, are living through the harshest economic times since the Great Depression. In such an environment, an awkward personal decision — marrying into a family of limited means, a sudden break-up — can leave you incredibly financially vulnerable. I gave them both some cash — just some pocket change to buy some food, really — but the economic opportunity that can enrich their lives and make their long-term dreams seem feasible, I can't provide. I can be a stopgap. The real opportunities can only be created by a vibrant economy and smart government. I believe, at some point during the Obama years, these forces will come together. But, as the daily economic news indicates, it's gonna be a least a year (fingers crossed) before we see any real turn around. I have a memoir coming out next spring, City Kid, which is about my journey from a poor family in the projects to some acclaim as a writer/filmmaker. Both my nieces are minor characters in the narrative. Looking at the book after our breakfast, I realized how much of my career had been aided by a growing economy of the '80s and '90s that sustained the magazines and publishers that made my journey possible. I worry now that, despite the work and ambition of my nieces, their sense of possibility will be permanently damaged in a period when lay-offs are commonplace and jobs disappearing. The 21st-century sequel to my story, which my nieces are writing right now, may have a big ending, but right now it is very bleak
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Guests
by Nelson George, December 4, 2008 10:25 AM
The first time I attended the Sundance festival was 2000 when a friend of mine had a film in the dramatic competition. And, in the great tradition of film festivals, I slept on the sofa of his hotel room, alongside several other friends who were crashing. Of course, since we were at Sundance, I didn't sleep very much between screenings and parties. I flew in one day, made the rounds that night, and then, quite groggy, left the next day. My second trip to Sundance, I was the executive producer of Everyday People, a film written and directed by Jim McKay, which I had developed with HBO. This trip I had my own room! The film was very well received and I drank enough that the altitude in Park City made me happy a little too hard. It is perhaps why I had a terrible fight with my girlfriend at that time. So that premiere night lingers in memory as a crazy, bittersweet affair. My third trip to Sundance was, I can say easily, almost a total triumph. A film I directed and scripted, Life Support, was selected to be the festival's closing night. It starred Queen Latifah in an amazing performance (she'd go on to win the Golden Globe and SAG Awards, and get nominated for an Emmy) in a story based on my sister's struggles with the HIV virus. The film got a standing ovation. I gave the best speech of my life, and I had a wonderful girlfriend by my side. Oh, and my cinematographer, my editor, and my assistant all crashed in my room, and a fun time was had by all. The only negative came the morning after the premiere, when Variety gave the film the only bad review it would receive. Well, today I just found out I'll be having my fourth trip to that famous Utah festival. It was announced today that a documentary that I executive produced called Good Hair was selected to be in the documentary competition. Comic Chris Rock travels around America, and even as far as India, in order to try and understand the forces that shape the attitudes toward black women's hair. The film is really tragicomic; as we look at the cultural/social/economic forces that affect black women, Rock brings an amused but sympathetic eye to a world most men have no idea about. So far, I have two folks angling for room on my sofa with a few more people putting out feelers. But since Chris Rock is coming, I figure he'll have a bigger room than me. So, if you come to Sundance in January, you may find me on Chris's surely extra-comfy
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Guests
by Nelson George, December 3, 2008 10:35 AM
In the late '70s, I was studying communication arts at St. John's University in the morning and then scrambling to pick up gigs as a freelance reporter in the afternoons. One of my many low-paying gigs was for a now long-defunct black lifestyle mag called Routes whose name was a cheesy play on the historic ABC mini-series. The money was funny and the editors weak, but I was able to score some cool interviews using their name. My most memorable gig for that mag was an interview with Melvin Van Peebles, the legendary maker of the indie film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, as well as a playwright, recording artist, and part-time citizen of France. Shot in Los Angeles outside the Hollywood unions — he told the guilds he was shooting a porno — Sweetback was about a stud who kills two LADP officers who are brutalizing a black prisoner, and then is chased through Watts and the desert to escape to Mexico. It was a revolutionary film, one that the Black Panthers praised and that was a surprise box-office success in 1970. The blaxploitation genre of the '70s was a Hollywood rip-off of Sweetback that had black heroes minus the radical politics. Van Peebles's office was on Seventh Avenue just above the Stage Deli and when I went in to meet Melvin he was wearing slacks with suspenders, no shirt, and a fedora, and puffing on a cigar. Also, he wore no shoes. I don't remember the specifics of the interview all these years later, but what was clear is that I was in the presence of a truly unconventional, happily eccentric, and powerfully visionary man. Over the years I got to know Melvin much better as I grew as a writer and then filmmaker. Melvin, of course, never stood still. He did a stint on Wall Street, wrote the screenplays for several films, including his son Mario's Panther, made several films in France, where he has kept an apartment since the '50s, and has been the subject of bio pics and documentaries. Last night in New York, Melvin was honored at the Independent Features Project's Gotham Awards for his long career as an indie filmmaker. Back with John Cassavetes and a few others, Melvin was being honored for being one of the founding fathers of American indie film. After the ceremony, which was held down at a ballroom on Wall Street, I ran into Melvin on the street. Turns out he was going to flag down a cab. I had a car picking me up, so I was honored to give him a lift up to midtown. So, some 30 years after first interviewing Melvin, I was able to share some quality time with him on a special night. We talked a lot about possibility during our ride. That's what his career had been about, giving some inspiration to filmmakers and artists who, because of their nature and/or sensibility, had made careers outside the Hollywood system. He'd certainly done that for me, and I thanked him for it. It's not often you get a chance to give props to your heroes. I was so lucky to have had that chance last
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Guests
by Nelson George, December 2, 2008 10:25 AM
In 1988, I published a book called The Death of Rhythm and Blues about the steady demise of the system of record stores, radio stations, venues, communities, and music that had been the heartbeat of black America from the 1940s to 1980s. The underlying idea was that the health of black popular music reflected the hope and aspirations of my people. Rhythm and blues, particularly soul music, had evolved alongside the civil rights movement. Alongside the things that were gained, there were losses as well, and our musical culture was, to a great degree, one of the losers. The Death of Rhythm and Blues hit bookshelves in the middle of what many now call "the golden age" of hip hop, when great (mostly New York-based) MCs rocked the mic, bringing politics, religion, philosophy, and introspection to the world via dope beats and swagger. Public Enemy, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, and many others led a surge that would eventually push R&B to the side, making hip hop black America's defining musical expression. In fact, the most popular R&B/soul records would, from the late '80s on, be made, and heard, largely through a hip hop prism. All of which makes it ironic that I spend much of my summer traveling America in search of soul. I conceived and hosted a series called Soul Cities (currently airing on the VH1 Soul channel) in which I looked at the food, landmarks, museums, and, of course, musicians of New Orleans, Memphis, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. The support system for singers who make old-school-styled black music is fragile. There isn't a coherent national network radio stations or venues that showcase soul (though there are tons of nightly parties.) The community of fans is very fragmented, with some liking '60s soul vets; others fans of younger neo-soul acts. But there is, if not a movement, then a definite yearning for the inspirational, life-affirming nature of this music. Marvelous vets like Raphael Saddiq from the Bay Area, young underground acts like Aloe Blacc in Los Angeles and Yaw in Chicago, and Kindred and Jazmine Sullivan from Philly, all spoke to me about why this music is relevant in the 21st century. Though differing in attitude and style, all these artists shared the feeling that the combination of political optimism and economic hardship made it a fertile time for music that spoke to human aspirations and frustrations. (It should also be noted that British acts like Amy Winehouse, Seal, and Adele have been making successful soul records that have crossed the pond.) While I'm not quite ready to write a book called The Return of Rhythm and Blues, I was encouraged by the vitality of the music I heard around America this summer.
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Guests
by Nelson George, December 1, 2008 3:51 PM
America's melting pot mythology has never been better served than by the rise of Barack Obama. His oft told tale of having mixed race parents, living an odd, exotic childhood, and ultimately emerging as this nation's first true 21st-century leader has re-ignited our faith in national narrative. People around the world seem genuinely moved by his election to the presidency. But, following in our footsteps? That's another matter. My many friends in the United Kingdom and France, places with complicated histories with their former colonies and the peoples they once dominated, see Obama as a symbol of how far they have to go. My French friends in particular seem especially conflicted, since "race" is damn near a forbidden topic in France's public discourse. Census numbers and statistics based on race are not officially kept in France, since once you are a "citizen," you are French. Which begs the question, what if you are not treated like a citizen? La Haine, the mid-'90s film about three poor kids from the Paris suburbs, nailed that challenge with hip hop potency and anticipated the riots in the Paris suburbs this decade. But the most nuanced artistic look at the limits to ethnic mobility in France is Jean-Claude Izzo's Marseilles Trilogy, three hard-boiled crime novels with Mediterranean soul. In Total Chaos, Chourmo, and Solea, Izzo uses a world-weary, sea-loving, hard-drinking, and always melancholy ex-cop named Fabio Montale to outline the despair of France's Arabs, Africans, and gypsies. I've been reading Izzo since Obama's election, both moved by his vigorous rendering of Marseilles and the teeming life in that coastal city, and saddened by the fatalism that drives the narratives. These books, published by the late author just before the turn of the century, are film noir with sun. Kinda of like Raymond Chandler meets Walter Moseley with better wine and fish. Izzo's mastery of despair reflects the underlying emotion of my French African friends about the future. One pal, a journalist, has seen his sister move to London and brother to Los Angeles in search of opportunities they feel are impossible to even dream about in France. I don't write this to blast the French — though they do deserve to be called out on their racism — but to point out how remarkable Obama's tale is (it is very much an epic novel in progress) and to marvel at how a skillful novelist can do the work of a sociologist and a politician using the intensity of art as his
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