Author Archives: Justin Charity

Black people wrestle ginormous alien mechas, too

Posted on by under pop culture
Shinji Ikari, white boy at the center of everything

Shinji Ikari, white boy at the center of everything

Last night while I was sketching out some character trajectories for a fiction project, I started popping off on Twitter–rambling mostly unto myself–about how Asuka Langley Soryu (featured in banner graphic of this blog) is one of my all-time favorite female characters of any media or genre. There’s a lot to unpack in that assertion, and much exposition required for those who aren’t familiar with Neon Genesis Evangelion, but the gist is: the bizarre and jarring turns of Asuka’s character development, and [SPOILERS] her ultimate derision of the (Japanese male) protagonist’s defining conflict, yield a uniquely searing redhead of poignant adolescence, bloodlust and feminism. Asuka is the product of many bold choices on Hideaki Anno’s part, in a notoriously cheeky plot, and in a genre where founding premises and direction face few creative bounds. e.g., a series in which at one point Shinji Ikari is swallowed by a marble Dirac sea.

That’s one end of the creative spectrum.

On the opposite end, the stultified extreme, our imaginations are not so spent, and we’re meant to nod (off) through 42, a by-the-numbers struggle reel about Jackie Robinson, which by osmosis we’ve all seen before: “You are not the only one with something at stake here!” etc etc.

And Ray.

And Remember the Titans.

And Red Tails.

And the like.

On Twitter this morning NPR’s Code-Switch team asked:

And I thought about this for a bit, and then I read Gene Demby’s associated piece:

And just like Red Tails, 42 won its opening weekend.

But does this this box-office-receipt activism actually work in getting more big-budget black-themed flicks made? The writer dream hampton voiced some skepticism about the rallying around Lucas’ Red Tails pitch by pointing out that Eddie Murphy, once one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, couldn’t get backing for his movies with black casts made even after he starred in two such movies (Coming to America and Harlem Nights) that grossed nearly $500 million combined. “Ignore Lucas’ thin hysteria too, the box office returns of Red Tails will mean little to the future of Black films or their budgets,” hampton wrote.

…

You also have to wonder if the push to support these competent but by-the-numbers historical stories and biopics — Ray, Glory Road, The Great Debaters, Remember the Titans, etc., to say nothing of this year’s forthcoming biopics on Nelson Mandela, Nina Simone and a long-serving black White House butler — might only result in demonstrating to movie studios that black audiences can only reliably be expected to turn out for $40 million book reports.

“Pricey” aside, formula-biopics and sepia throwbacks are hardly a gateway to any new creative terrain. The funny thing about asking whether Remember The Titans will help widen the black creative frontier in Hollywood is that Remember the Titans was released 13 years ago. If it took Remember the Titans and the like to nudge us toward Lucas’ Red Tails in 2012–to wit: “Red Tails sucked.”–then at best we’re being steered sideways. In any case, while one hugely successful black biopic may inspire Hollywood’s appetite for more, it persists that black and brown directors, producers, actors rarely slip from the gravity of such textbook fare, unless it’s to don a wig and snap sassy within the stale familiar scripting of our more light-hearted stereotypes.

Yet one day, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d rather be piloting Eva Unit-01.

In other words: Where are our Evangelions? Not ours, even. Rather, where are the massive and deliciously intricate plots that maybe happen to feature brown protagonists and baddies? I’m not saying they don’t exist at all, but that I can count the Denzels and Saldanas, the Spikes and Shondas on a couple hands doesn’t much sate the demand that I’m quite sure exists. Indeed, Donald Glover once whipped a popular revolt challenging the identity of Spiderman. And surely I’d pay to see Idris Elba take a live-action shot at Gendo Ikari.

Back when I was a teenager watching Eva, gasping rapt and lonesome in my bedroom, I rarely shared my love of the series with my friends. Anime just seemed so white; implausibly, indefensibly. But then, and still now, I guess everything is. Embarrassingly so, as art that does not require or invite my consumption, or even my existence. Cast adrift from the mainstream, black talent sucks its teeth, snaps its fingers, stage-whispers through apoplectic sermons, gets married, gets cheated on, gets divorced, alley-oops. Brown faces dot blockbuster backdrops, occasionally. Meanwhile white folks are all of this and then infinitely more, often lancing the surreal and staving whatever fantastic peril emerges from vast depths and heavens.

Between white and non-, we are long divided, and long delayed in what I’m convinced is the gravest civil rights cause of our time, the next great struggle: It’s time to integrate mecha pilot recruitment. If not in Tokyo-3, then at Lionsgate. Lest humanity perish by its insufficient ranks.

BREAKING: News lives

Posted on by under pop culture

Screen Shot 2013-04-19 at 10.02.42 PM

A few minutes past midnight on Friday I tapped in to the Boston police scanner via Broadcastify, following the myriad lead of my Twitter feed clamoring well past its bedtime. Given my novice in tracking such developments as by no means any sort of journalist, I must admit that keeping up was an impossible strain of my competence, if riveting nonetheless. The suspect was alive, then dead, then alive, fleeing on food, no wait in a Camero, ducking between houses, ad infinitum. Safe to say, in all the yippy gloating over the death of CNN, really no one got it quite right. Until the definitive end: the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, confirmed by official sources in realtime, with no one needing to hop a fence or risk sniper fire to break the conclusion of hostilities.

At Slate earlier today, Farhad Manjoo examined this dynamic: the lag of the cable news networks and The New York Times vs. the lightspeed metamorph speculation of social media. The New York Times was “late” to first publication of the late-breaking Watertown chase because The New York Times–unlike yours [digitally]–suffers greatly by scrupples and demands of accuracy. Point being, no, “old” media isn’t dead, though we mock its limping through physical therapy. News gathering is different–more crowded, crowdsourced–than a decade ago, and cable news, the big broadsheets, and local hacks remain indispensable. Apart from the many conflicting first-hand accounts of police chatter, Twitter ultimately gleaned its most reliable narration from steady pens on the scene like @jessbidgood, Boston Bureau, The New York Times. Proper due noted, the idea that Twitter could’ve covered this alone and well is, well–

Coverage of the Boston pursuit was brought to you by the hungry internet, intrepid local reporters, on-site neighbors with half-charged phone batteries, local reporters who knew the lay of the land and the names of the officers–and, yes, Jake Tapper helming CNN through the dim and infamous hours.

Coverage of the Boston pursuit was brought to you by a livid world in which news fires from every direction, sometimes astray, but dinging massive truth in due course.

‘Between Southern guilt and Southern blame.’

Posted on by under hip hop, race

Brad Paisley was kind enough to pen a tribute to my childhood. I’d like to think that I’m the man who works “in the Starbucks down on Main.”

Or rather:

I’m the kid who shudders a bit and starts biting his nails upon walking into an auto parts store far flung from the interstate, finding myself swarmed by men wearing gruff glances and countless Confederate prints: t-shirts, hats, stitched jacket patches, hairy tattooed forearms, etc. Often their apparel will bare such proud and explicit warning: “IF YOU DON’T LIKE MY FLAG, YOU CAN KISS MY ASS!”

This is all, I’m often assured, a warm celebration of freedom and Skynyrd.

When I was a kid—a black kid in the eastern Richmond suburbs—I hung around enough Lost Causers to know (and love) many of them as folks with open hearts, if stubborn intellects. Over the years, in my fair share of arguments with neighbors, friends, their parents, I posed Ta-Nehisi’s question plain: “How well do you know the history of the symbols you claim?” Dude, did you know half these damn states straight up claimed slavery as their instigating cause?

Some days I had back-up in yapping such heresy: a few fellow nerds, and one decisively sympathetic high school history teacher. But most days I met with shrugs and resilient denials of historical record—as the Stars and Bars flapped overhead, clipped to the gutter of a nonetheless friendly garage.

So Brad Paisley, man, I feel you. Knowing as I do how deeply entrenched and hotly defended Confederate mythology is, I respect your clumsy kumbaya—

…and I don’t know the answers, but I feel like asking the question is the first step, and we’re asking the question in a big way. How do I show my Southern pride? What is offensive to you? And [LL Cool J] kind of replies, and his summation is really that whole let’s bygones be bygones and ‘If you don’t judge my do rag, I won’t judge your red flag.’ We don’t solve anything, but it’s two guys that believe in who they are and where they’re from very honestly having a conversation and trying to reconcile.

—but you’re strumming a false choice “between Southern pride and Southern blame,” between an iteration of the South that welcomes me and one that fantasizes me in chains.

If you asked me what it means to partake in the South, I’d spring to life and:

  • Feed you some souse.
  • Teach you how to safely brace the butt of a shotgun in proper firing stance.
  • Toss you some earplugs for the six hours of drag racing to which I’m prepared to subject you.
  • Drag you to Bible study at 7pm on a Wednesday.
  • Set you correct on the proper consistency of grits—steaming lumpy yet evenly sultry, with a butter corona.

That’s white, that’s black, that brown, that’s damn near err’body from around my hometown way, swelled with sweaty delectable pride.

What the white kids back home never gracefully explained to me, though, is why this pride is a matter of waving a literally belligerent banner—the avatar of a nation that meant to maim, enslave and murder its citizens, i.e., your neighbors.

If that banner falls, does the South unravel with it?

Of course not. The Confederate flag is not iconic of the South in any modern, livable sense; it’s simply, decidedly, unapologetically white. The Confederate flag is white pride, full stop. It doesn’t celebrate black freedom, or Southern blackness, nor does it mean to. What’s the point in denying this sleight, or forgiving it as LL does? How does counterfeiting history nudge us toward, of all things, understanding?

I don’t need Uncle L to concede what I will not: that pride in the South should make way for pride in a rebellion that meant to chain and rape my family. For real, you ain’t even from ‘round here, bruh — the exchange LL feigns, I’ve braved too often: glancing that flag on a stranger’s shirt, in a county where more times than I wish to recall I’ve been called a nigger to my face, and worrying whether they’ll dish me harm or disrespect.

One day I grew up, grew weary of both this tension and this argument, and so I retreated. At eighteen years old, I packed my life and fled north up I-95, doleful, sure that I’d overstayed my welcome in Dixie’s bitter capital. Convinced that all along, despite the pride of my drawl, I’d been a nuisance to my own home.

[Cross-posted from PostBourgie, many thanks to the chief homie G.D. for inviting me to wax.]

An ethereal clash

Posted on by under hip hop, short fiction

FROM: Lew, Thomas

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 1:53pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—

I just wanted to check in again with you regarding the research request we discussed last week (Monday, 01/28). It seems that we’re now a few days behind on this deliverable, and the client is asking for an update.

Please let me know if you would like to discuss further, or if you are having trouble completing the assignment as requested. I am at my desk, so feel free to give me a ring or drop by, or I can come to you if you’d prefer.

Thanks.

Thomas Lew

Project Coordinator

FROM: Jones, Nasir

TO: Lew, Thomas

DATE: 02/07/2013, 1:55pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

A-yo, I know you ain’t talking about me, dawg. You? What?

FROM: Lew, Thomas

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:12pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—

First, I really hope that we don’t need to revisit the importance of proper workplace etiquette. After we discussed this in December, I was under the impression that you took my guidance to heart, and that you were going to reflect on your behavior over the holidays and return to work with a more professional, more productive attitude.

Now, the impropriety of your reply aside, I asked you to complete an assignment by Thursday and have avoided harassing you about this lapsed deadline in an effort toward good will and avoiding any hard feeling between the two of us. You seem to be refusing me similar courtesy here.

Please let me know when you expect to finish the assignment, or whether I should instead seek assistance from one other analysts, which I’m happy to request at this stage, despite the client’s present persistence.

Thomas

FROM: Jones, Nasir

TO: Lew, Thomas

DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:13pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

You been on my dick, nigga. You love my style, nigga.

FROM: Lew, Thomas

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:22pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—

I do not, in fact, appreciate your style—and certainly not your addressing me as the n-word. Not that I should need to be telling you this in the first place, but surely you understand that despite your own ethnicity, (1) I am white and (2) those sorts of epithets are not appropriate for office email.

Are you at your desk? Do you have a few minutes to chat? I need to respond to the client by the close of business today regarding our expected timeline for completion.

Obviously there’s much else for us to discuss as well.

Thomas

FROM: Jones, Nasir

TO: Lew, Thomas

DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:28pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Y’all impatiently waiting. It’s like an AIDS test: What’s the results?

FROM: Lew, Thomas

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:48pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—

I just want to point out that I made this research request on Monday, and it is, in my estimation, a three-day assignment at most. In any case, you’ve had ample time and opportunity, I think, to discuss any difficulties with me, or to let me know if you needed a deadline extension for whatever reason.

That said, this is unacceptable. Both your stalling and your choice of words (I’m not sure what AIDS, which is a serious issue in many parts of the city, a grave threat to many lives, has anything to do with this, and why you’ve taken to making a joke of it here–just my two cents).

I just dropped by your office and see that you’ve stepped out. Please let me know when you’re back at your desk, as I really think that we should speak in-person about this: both the matter of this assignment, which is now a week late, and your conduct in general. Apart from this email exchange, I think your loud and ominous bragging at the office holiday party a couple months back about you having recently purchased a firearm by dubious means, for instance, is also cause for concern. We are colleagues, and this is a workplace (even after hours), and I must admit, I’ve at times taken your tone as quite threatening and reckless.

Please let me know when you’re available to discuss.

Thomas

FROM: Jones, Nasir

TO: Lew, Thomas

DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:51pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

What’s sad is, I love you because you’re my brother. You traded your soul for riches.

FROM: Lew, Thomas

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:00pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—

I’m simply not sure what you’re referring to in accusing me of “trading my soul for riches.” My recent promotion was well deserved, I’d say, given I’ve been with the company for six years now. Yes, I understand that there’s some lingering consternation and rumor-mongering surrounding Lilith Chu’s recent departure after having been passed over for the position a third year in a row, following her return from maternity leave, but as I’ve told many of our other colleagues these past few weeks, I’ve worked quite hard in my time here, clocking as many long, dark, rigorous hours as anyone else, and I’m by every wit confident that I’m the best man for the job.

Just so you know, I’ve passed this email exchange on to the head of our HR team, whom I believe you know quite well at this point.

Thomas

FROM: Lew, Thomas

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:01pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

*best person for the job

FROM: Jacob, Roxanne

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:11pm

SUBJECT: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—

Tom Lew passed this email exchange on to me a while ago, and I must say, I find this all deeply troubling. I have spoken with our IT department, and they assure me that your account has not been compromised. They have also assured me that these emails with Tom are the only ones originating from your account today. I am not sure what to make of this, though I am sure that you have other work to do.

Given some of your past behavior, which we’ve already discussed, I am forced to assume that this is in fact you sending these emails, though I am unable to confirm this since you are not at your desk. (Grace at reception informs me that you stepped out a while ago and have been gone for a couple hours now.)

Nasir, I recognize that although you did not want to address this in any great detail when you and I last spoke, you seem to be going through a rough period at home, which I see corresponds with the few days of bereavement leave you took the first week of December. While I certainly understand that it’s often difficult to separate personal trauma from our workplace attitudes, the below email exchange is certainly a breach of proper conduct regardless of whatever may be troubling you outside of work.

I think it would be best—both for you, and for the firm—if you stopped by my office as soon as you’re back from your errand.

Best,

Roxy Jacob

HR Manager

FROM: Jones, Nasir

TO: Lew, Thomas

DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:14pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Well, life is harsh. Hug me, don’t reject me.

FROM: Jacob, Roxanne

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:33pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—I certainly don’t mean to reject or otherwise demoralize you. I think candor among colleagues (where appropriate) can make for a more welcoming work environment, and I’m happy to help in whatever way might address any pertinent concerns you might be struggling with.

However, if stress is preventing you from respecting your peers and performing your best here at the office, I think we at least need to discuss your taking an extended leave, perhaps.

Also, I should let you know that our health insurance plan does cover a maximum of three (3) therapy services without a co-pay, if you think that’s something you might be interested in, and that might help you better cope with your recent loss.

Personally, I’ve also found that recreational commitments outside of work—I do yoga in Park Slope early every other morning, for instance—are wonderful stress-relievers.

Please do come see me as soon as you’ve returned to your desk. I’ve asked Grace in reception to be on the lookout for you, and to direct you to my office upon your arrival.

Roxanne

FROM: Jones, Nasir

TO: Jacob, Roxanne

DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:34pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

I still whoop your ass. You thirty-six in a karate class? You Tae-bo ho.

FROM: Jacob, Roxanne

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:58pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—

It’s safe to say, I think, that you know your response to me just now was way out of line. I’m thirty-one, for one, and I am not a ‘ho’. Nor do I practice karate, but obviously that is beside the point.

Please know that you are walking a very thin line here, Nasir.

I just tried ringing your desk again, and your mobile, which sent me straight to voicemail after a couple rings. I should note that gunshots are neither professional nor basically helpful as a voicemail recording, as I am now unsure whether my records have your phone number listed correctly. (Apologies if I’m mistaken here.)

Suffice it to say, while I consider how to deal with your conduct on my end, I have also passed this email exchange along to Alex Nielson, as he’s the senior-most supervisor for your department, and I suppose he will want to speak with you about your conduct here as well.

Roxanne

FROM: Nielson, Alexander

TO: Jones, Nasir; Roxanne, Jacob

DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:06pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

What is this shit? Roxy what is he talking about?

AN

FROM: Jones, Nasir

TO: Nielson, Alexander; Jacob, Roxanne

DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:07pm

SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Put you in a dry spot, fellas. In a pine box with nine shots from my Glock, fellas.

FROM: Nielson, Alexander

TO: Jones, Nasir; Roxanne, Jacob

DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:12pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir are you serious? Rox I don’t have time to deal with this right now, please could you speak with Nasir asap? Thx

FROM: Jones, Nasir

TO: Nielson, Alexander; Jacob, Roxanne

DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:12pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Foxy got you hot cuz you kept your face in her pus. What, you think you getting girls now cuz of your looks?

FROM: Nielson, Alexander

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:24pm

SUBJECT: FW: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—Away from desk. Cabbing back from mtg now. Talk in person, okay? Not sure what youre suggesting about me and Rox but can assure you conducted myself in accordance with workplace standards. Incident in parking garage during the holiday party (think you may be referring to) was just jostling among colleagues, Rox tripped landed in me lap for a sec is all

think itd be best if we have a man/to-man chat, smooth out any misunderstandings, etc

Have asked rox to stand down for now in interests of all involved. Lets just you and I chat, work things out etc. dude i got kids

Rgds

AN

FROM: Nielson, Alexander

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:38pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Just dipped by your office. Back at my desk. Please can we please chat?

Alexander Nielson

Senior Director, Analyst Division

FROM: Jones, Nasir

TO: Nielson, Alexander

DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:40pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

You pop shit. Apologize, nigga.

FROM: Nielson, Alexander

TO: Jones, Nasir

DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:41pm

SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint

Nasir—

I am sorry.

AN

Self-help post #1: Walking you through it vs. introspection

Posted on by under self-help, writing on writing

Read this series of interviews with a bunch of funny ladies about their first times having sex. I’ve found it helpful in rewriting much of my first chapter especially, and broadly in building out the narrative throughout much of my current draft.

Why is reading this interview helpful to me?

In interviews, when provided with a sort of open-ended prompt–e.g., tell me about your first time having sex, and how you got to that moment, and how you felt about it–people will generally lean into storytelling mode, with all the accompanying ticks of their voice, their sense of narrative direction, their attention span, their retention of details, their level of reticence, their anticipation of the question, etc.

In any case, it’s harder to forget this stuff, how a story naturally progresses, when you’re answering a specific question, since it’s quite clear what your end is: answering to satisfaction. Respondents will vary, of course, in what they perceive as sufficient detail, but the point remains that someone’s offered you a set-up, and you’re filling in the blanks.

Writing a long-form story is quite different, obviously in many ways, but particularly in that you’re responsible for your own set-up, and you’re answering questions that no one’s asked you yet. For me this means reminding myself that I’m actually walking a reader through time and space rather than through my thoughts about that time and space, with lots of introspective digressions attributed to my protagonist that, really, are all about me. After all my thought process isn’t really that interesting to you, probably. It’s what I produce that defines me (to the reader, at least), and what form my production takes in the reader’s head rather than in my own.

I’ll pluck an example that I really enjoy from this piece:

I went over to his dorm and broke up with him in the laundry room, sitting on top of a running washer.

Unpacking this sentence, I found all I could possibly want in reading it. It’s nothing surreal or magical or complex; it’s a whole image and event incorporated into twenty-two words. It’s that simple, really. Sometimes telling a story is as simple as just telling it, as if it were just you and me, speaking.

Breakable habits

Posted on by under real life, real rap, writing on writing

Everybody has ticks. People need ticks to give other people adequate cause to find them annoying, if need be. Sometimes our ticks annoy even ourselves. Like, when I commence a sentence with “Like” because I’m approximating how I’d read a passage aloud that I’ve just written. I hate when I do that!

Ticks in my writing that annoy me, but that I’m maybe too lazy to thwart:

  1. Simplicity. I’m a simple motherfucker, okay? I’m finishing Jonathan Lethem’s ‘Fortress of Solitude’ now, and it’s such intimidating narrative; he could spend six pages illustrating the cracks in a sidewalk. Spittin’ them Victor Hugo bars. It’s impressive, and I love reading it, but I don’t-slash-can’t really write like that. Most of the time I’m fine just saying, “Homeboy sat down, okay? In a chair. It was regular-ass chair, with some legs and shit.”
  2. Narrative vs. Dialogue. Maybe I should write plays or something, instead of a novel. I should try to write one play, a one-act, and see what happens. I rather enjoy writing dialogue, especially among characters of my generation, but it’s always a slog for me transitioning from drafting a conversation to drafting the narrative around it that drives and contextualizes it. I wish I could do both more efficiently in the same sitting. I’ll get there, I guess.
  3. Sex. My main project’s protagonist is much like me, but younger and thus at a very slightly different stage in his life at the time of his story. He thinks about sex a lot, because honestly who doesn’t? He has sex a few times in the story, because honestly who wouldn’t have sex in a book? But I often feel like a creeper when I’m writing sex and attraction, because sex and attraction sometimes warp our ability to be empathetic, relatable human beings rather than fiending sociopaths in a Lena Dunham script. Of course, there’s a story in that, too. I’m working on it.
  4. Series of Three. You know how like (see: intro), you’ll be reading some listicle on Slate or The Huffington Post or in the Bible or wherever, and every bit of analysis or advice or observation is broken into convenient series of three, seven or ten. It’s always three, seven or ten. The answer to any complex question comes in either three parts, seven parts or ten parts. That’s mad suspect, b. It’s almost like folks are making shit up, b. But anyway I sometimes do this with complex sentence descriptions of things, e.g. Jen was eating a taco, dripping salsa from the tip of her nose, fantasizing about Kevin Bacon. I think it’s a cadence thing. Or something. In any case it’s wack and I gotta stop doing it.

That’s all I got, b. No more flaws to scrutinize, for sure, I promise.

“Shawn Carter was born December 4th.”

Posted on by under hip hop, pop culture

Today is Jay-Z’s forty-third birthday, which I want to commemorate briefly here because Jiggaman and a few other legendary emcees–Nas, Eminem and Ice Cube–were some of the earliest pop culture influences in my life that made me fall in love with writing.

Storytelling.

That’s what rap is, even at its grimiest. Listen, for instance, to the first verse of Meek Mill’s ‘Polo & Shell Tops’. Are they the smartest bars you’ve ever heard? No, but still: Dickies and fitteds, a warm chopper dropping shells, nights posted on a corner. Simple shit, vivid enough. See, I get the picture.
See

Hip hop can teach you as much about illustrating the world and its life as any book can. At least it’s done so for me.

Cheers, Hov.

You talk yourself down, you talk yourself up

Posted on by under real life, real rap, writing on writing

Today I’ve just read a great NYT piece from author Silas House about how aspiring writers often approach their craft: with moody contemplation displacing the time-honored tradition of just banging out your goddamn novel already.

But angst’ll get you somewhere, I’ve found, sometimes.

So like:

I spent several hours writing this past Saturday, alone in my room from eleven o’clock in the morning to a couple shades past dinner, and by then my attention span had faltered to recessionary lows.

I arranged to meet a friend uptown. A writer friend. I took my laptop, and we both wrote for a couple more hours, till around 1am, in the unhelpfully dim ambiance of a 24-hour cafe with comfy chairs and sensual grits that could’ve inspired a short story of their own, which I considered at the time and, hey, maybe I’ll give it a shot at some point later this month.

She and I typed. We produced. She published 800 fresh words, polished and carefully considered, to her blog. I read her scene. She’d done good, and the thoughts and images she’d laid out stuck with me when I biked home a few hours later: The regrettable discomfort of even a decent baguette.

But first we were off down the block for sleepy lagers to counter our lingering caffeination.

She asked me what I was working on, and I told her, a long-ass story that hopefully I’ll tie together as a novel. Then we talked about writing. There it was: talked about writing. Yes, in that most existential sense, the one young writers tend to manage after a couple beers in their moodiest times of the month (I’m looking at you too, dudes). Why do we write? What do we want? Who are we better than? Are we any good at all? And for real, b, why is this shit so difficult?

I gave the conversation half an hour–okay, fine, a full hour and some change–and then something bummed me out.

I couldn’t stop thinking about my story. I needed to get back home, burn off this buzz on my bike, and light up my screen for a few more hours.

See, all day, alone in my room, I’d been floating through the motions. Type, type, type. Naw, that shit ain’t right. Obsess. Delete. Repeat. About four hours into that Saturday, I’d forgotten that I was telling a story, and that it’s, in fact, a story I desperately want to tell, that I need to be told.

I’d forgotten why I was writing, if only for a few hours.

Homegirl reminded me.

Good talk.