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 night.
Peace.