Film Review: ATHENA

I recall my first trip to Paris as an adult. I went by myself, determined to make it for one week on a budget of 100 euros. I’d managed the feat, but for the purpose of this review I recall one specific memory, which was my train ride in from DeGaulle into the 1st arrondissement. From my childhood I’d recalled the over-the-top beauty and refinement of Paris, but as an adult I saw the real Paris on that ride, the suburbs of the city made up of its various banlieu, the endless housing projects for those who could only dream of affording a hundred square feet in the heart of the city. As the train stopped at the various stations in the suburbs, the residents who hopped on and off were the furthest thing from what we in America popularly identified as being “French.” There were no Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Anna Karina or Jean Seberg types, no chic clothes, loose cigarettes dangling or berets. This population was distinctively African and Arab of all shapes and sizes, old and young. Again, by virtue of cinema and my favorite film of all time, LA HAINE, I’d had some idea of these communities, but it was through the sheltered distance of a movie screen. To be in the thick of these communities of immigrants, colonial castoffs and refugees is to be immersed in a vibrant, profoundly intimidating energy and flow, a balance of survival and freedom from situations that could have been assumed to have been far worse. The banlieu were covered in graffiti, peppered with cornershops and connected by public works, and there was a sense of global chaos, of disparate people from all over the world trying to scratch out an existence in a country that couldn’t be more different than their motherlands. I found it invigorating, scary and comforting, as they reminded me of so many of the young immigrant families that I grew up with, my own included. 

It’s these memories I carried into my viewing of ATHENA, puzzlingly categorized on Netflix as an “action thriller from France.” Directed by music video enfant terrible Romain Gavras (son of legendary Greek filmmaker and rabblerouser Costa Gavras), ATHENA is a powderkeg of a movie that takes place over a single day in a banlieu of the same name. All is not well - in a scenario becoming all too familiar, a young Arab boy is killed by the police, and unrest is brewing in the central blocks of Athena as its residents are growing tired of the institutionalized violence against them. The felled boy has three brothers: Abdel, a French-Algerian soldier who pleas with his community to protest peacefully. There is Karim, the younger brother who despite Abdel’s requests leads a violent insurrection against the police, demanding that the identities of his brother’s killers be made public, and lastly there is eldest brother Moktar, a low-level drug dealer whose only interests are the preservation of his business and trade. 

The film - shot in a series of about a dozen breathtaking single takes - weaves in and out of the banlieu as the brothers straddle between anarchy and civility. A cast of hundreds and hundreds scramble through the labyrinthine housing project seeking refuge from the onslaught of the French police cracking down on Karim’s army. As this is France, there are little to no firearms, and the residents of Athena repel the police with firecrackers, household items and appliances thrown from rooftops, and molotov cocktails. As the war endures, Karim shifts his strategy to capture a single police officer, a young rookie by the name of Jerome. This strategy pushes Abdel to the breaking point, as his allegiance to his family, his community and his country as a soldier are tested. 

First and foremost, ATHENA is not an action film in the American sense. There is plenty of heart-pounding action, but none of it - zero - is done for an adrenaline rush or amusement. This action is far too relatable and real - it’s like being submerged in the countless riots that come in the aftermath of police shootings - and the uncut, fluid single shots put you headfirst into real time. There isn’t any time to breathe in this film, and that’s completely intentional. You’re in the shit with these characters, and it’s impossible to not connect with their struggles and conflicts. While one might argue the characters are somewhat one-note, there needs to be a reminder that the events of this film take place over one night, and so what we know of them is the same as we would in the chaos of that moment. Even with that, I felt there was enough development to generate genuine pathos, because we’ve all met these type of real people in our lives. 

That said, the film carries with it a beautiful sense of surrealism, each frame a violent painting of concrete, smoke, flesh and fire. It plays out like a Greek tragedy of warriors and peasants, brothers and enemies, all against a backdrop of warfare so compellingly strange that it feels almost alien. The technical execution of ATHENA is an absolute marvel, and it contains zero CGI. Because of that I’d place it above AVATAR 2 in terms of its technical grandiose and ambition, and it is executed flawlessly. The cinematography (shot in IMAX), the haunting score, the choreography and the performances are all first rate. If we’re willing to give James Cameron a billion dollar reward for his technical ambitions, then I think Romain Gavras and his crew deserve two billion. It really is that jaw-dropping of an achievement, and I don’t think we’ll see anything like it for quite some time. The only thing keeping this film from being an outright masterpiece is the inclusion of a harbored terrorist, a plot device that feels forced and completely unnecessary, whose existence in the film is solely to facilitate the literal explosive climax. Handled with more nuance it would have worked, but the third act renders the character to a horrible and unnecessary cliche. But because it is so unnecessary to the plot it doesn’t pull anything away from the film’s brutal and profound impact, especially with the incredibly unsettling twist ending. A minor quip in an otherwise powerhouse of a film that has divided film critics straight down the middle, some calling it an essential commentary on our times and others saying it is a blueprint for anarchists seeking to burn society to the ground with their unresolved rage. I agree with the former - ATHENA is a punch in the face, a commentary on anger, barbarism, civility and communal love. It is a tragedy on an epic scale, and it left me breathless. I give it a strong 8.75 out of 10, and 10 out of 10 for its technical audacity. A staggering achievement, and my only regret is not being able to see it on a big screen in the theater; the compression of streaming brutally strips the imagery of its nuance and power. It must be a magnificent experience projected in a theater with pro sound, especially this stunning one-shot sequence, one of the best I’ve ever seen. Ever. Wow.

A Question.

It’s been years since I’ve written on this blog. I used to write daily for almost five years. 

For anyone of my still 71k followers on this feed, if I started writing again, would you still read? 

As always, I appreciate you. 

SR

Sexual Assault in the Media Biz

It’s been ages since I last wrote, my sincerest apologies. Been running two companies and I moved! So long Chicago, I’m now laying down roots in Denver. This Colorado kid is happy to be back home. It’s been a long time. 

I’ve been really overwhelmed with emotion ever since the news of Harvey Weinstein broke. I’ve met Harvey on a few occasions, and he was someone I respected professionally, but as a person I can’t say I liked him. But with these allegations of sexual assault and rape, the personality I was witness to coincides with the crimes he’s committed. I’m not really qualified to say any more on him. 

But the hundreds of women (and men) who are speaking up about assault from the likes of Weinstein, James Toback, Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner and Roy Price are indeed qualified to say more on it because it is their lived experience. It is not an anecdote, a fable or a rumor. It is something they lived through, and it is our obligation to believe and empathize with those lived experiences. To do otherwise is to be complicit in marginalizing the voices of those who suffer. 

And we’re really good at marginalizing voices. As a man I have to take responsibility in being part of the problem. My first reaction to hearing someone accused of rape has typically been one of caution, of “let’s wait to see how the evidence plays out” because in my male mind, I know how devastating a rape accusation can be to a man. It can ruin him forever. But where I failed miserably in this assessment, is that I’ve been more concerned of my own sanctity, safety and suffering than of someone who has already suffered, who has come out and said their agency has been taken away from them. I realize how callous it would be for me to go to someone who has been raped and tell them “let’s let the legal process carry itself out, because so much is at stake.” Besides being insulting and hurtful, what this does is immediately debase and place doubt upon the victim’s claim, and that is an egregious error on my part. One of the - if not the most important - thing I have learned from this wave of victims coming out with their stories, with the #MeToo campaign, is that when someone is brave enough to go public with what is the most humiliating and denigrating experience a human can go through, they deserve our belief in them. That is the first and most vital step we can take in combating sexual predators. I look at my past judgements and acknowledge that I had failed in that regard, and I stand humbled and corrected. 

The media business, be it film, music or modeling, is one built on optics. Especially so for women, as women are unfortunately judged primarily on their looks before anything else. It’s because our stories are built on a male fantasy. The average guy that can land a girl who is out of his league, and even better, she needs his power and intelligence to survive. She is in constant arousal, and therefore her consent is tied into her looks, how she presents herself to men. Look at any mainstream studio film, and this the the core narrative being told.

A lot of the men in these industries are given the same power as the characters in these poisonous narratives. In their minds, the pretty girls “need” them to succeed, and these men are the gatekeepers of economic success in the industry. They have the network. They have the money. They have the power. The very structure of that takes power away from the women, many of whom feel they have to walk a fine line of playing the game to get work and maintaining their agency. It is up to men in the industry to ensure that this line does not have to be walked, that the industry is a safe place for commerce and art to take place. 

There is a deep-seeded culture of power at work here. When I made my first film, I held auditions in Mumbai, the Hollywood of India. I had a casting director and was set to audition actresses for three days. I was sent the itinerary for the casting, and saw that it was to be held in a hotel room at a very posh hotel. I found this to be very uncomfortable, as I tried to put myself in the shoes of a young actress being sent to a hotel room alone with a man for an audition. I would dread that. I requested that the auditions be held in a office with good natural light. I said my female assistant should be in the room, working with us in the audition process, operating the camera. The casting director asked me why, and said the hotel room was how most directors and producers held casting sessions.  I told her that I needed the audition to be a safe space, a place where an actress can feel at ease and we can just converse about the part without her having any fear of being taken advantage of. I want her to focus on just being a good actress. I paid extra money out of my pocket to rent the audition space, and I felt better about it. I always bring up that I am married in my auditions, and have other women present in the room. We make it a jovial space, as it’s enough pressure as is to audition. One actress actually thanked me after the audition for making her feel welcome and safe, and told me horror stories of predatory producers and directors, stories that became all too common as the years went on.

Conversely I’ve had meetings where actresses did dress seductively and flirt. It happens, more than you think. It’s an industry filled with beautiful young men and women, and sometimes an actor can walk through the door who is so stunning your mind does backflips. I had one audition where an actress, who was ungodly gorgeous, who started unbuttoning her blouse while she was talking to me. I felt like telling her that “you don’t have to do that” but I also thought how humiliating it would be for her to have to hear that, to point out her playing the game to get a gig. I simply said “let’s keep this professional” and she was definitely embarrassed.  Was she in the wrong? Yes she was, it’s not professional. But it’s probably something that unfortunately worked for her in the past, or something that she thinks could work for her because someone told her that’s how the industry works.  Or it could just be who she is, or she could be genuinely flirting. Bottom line is she still doesn’t deserve to be harassed or have her agency taken away. Nobody deserves to be assaulted. If I at that time decided to bow into temptation, then it’s my poor life choice to make, my marriage and career to ruin, but it would still have to be with that actress’ consent. Wow - that was super difficult for me to write and be honest about. Now imagine having to testify how you were raped in front of a bunch of powerful men who hold your professional future in their hands. 

So if there are so many stories in the industry, then why not name names, why not bring these assholes to justice? Because for most actors in the industry, that’s an economic decision. Look at Colin Kaepernick being blacklisted for taking a stance. And that’s a man making non-violent protest against an institution who is not his employer. Imagine a woman taking on a Hollywood mogul, with a charge that should put him in prison. First, few would come to her defense because the culture of power is to protect the money, and not the victim. Second, she would have inherent fear of not being able to find work, to be labeled as “difficult,” as more of a liability. Third, she is a woman in a male dominated industry that has been designed to take away her power. That is simply not fair in the face of someone being assaulted, harassed or raped, where she has to put her livelihood ahead of her human rights.

Some idiots (*cough* Mayim Bialik *cough*) have suggested women should practice modesty in their dress, and therefore avoid being put in a situation where they can be accused of “asking for it.” But why can’t we tell Harvey Weinstein to avoid being in situations where he can be accused of rape? It’s the iron-clad adage: instead of telling your daughters how to dress, tell your sons to stop raping girls. It’s not that hard to embrace, folks. 

I can’t pretend to offer advice to young men and women on how to avoid being sexually harassed in the media business. I could say “tell someone” and if those pleas fall on deaf ears, then the problem is not the victim, it is the culture. The very very best thing we can do is respond to someone who says they’ve been harassed or raped that “I believe you, I will support you, and I will fight with you.”  Do not doubt them. MEN: Do not reference those cases where men have been falsely accused of rape. When you compare the number of cases of women who have been raped versus those who falsely accuse men of it, the false accusation cases are statistically negligible. And if you feel so strongly about false accusations, then also stand up for the men and women in our prison system who are in jail serving harsh sentences for weed possession, who have been framed by bad cops, who have been serving life sentences for accused crimes they cannot afford to fight against in court. Be consistent. Don’t be an asshole. Think of someone else’s suffering for a change. 

It takes a lot of courage to come out and accuse someone. When it comes to rape and sexual assault, our culture of power and toxic masculinity has always given the benefit of the doubt to the man. Even if we present a photo of a woman battered to a bloody pulp, somewhere in that discussion a man will bring up that something must have provoked that violent response. She’s out to get his money. She pushed him too far. These powerful men are all of a sudden powerless to their own impulses. No - it’s that very power which drives their impulses, and it needs to be put in check by actually having rapists and assaulters held accountable for their actions. Cowards like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski did things that deserve ire and jail time, and the longer we forgive them because of their artistic brilliance, the more we perpetuate the culture of toxic masculinity. This is a feminist statement as much as it is a statement of basic human decency. 

More power to the women and men standing up and making their voices and lived experiences heard. This is a watershed moment. 

Choosing our political battles.

With so many battles to choose, I suppose it’s best to pick a few and focus on them and not dilute my resources. I’ve decided to hone in on three issues. The first: Trump is threatening to shut down the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA is already given a relative pittance as it’s been assaulted over the decades, so it’s a small miracle that culture is still our nation’s number one export. We take culture for granted, and it’s been systematically replaced by mass consumerism, artifice and fear. Reality TV masquerading as cultural mirror. Trump’s threat to remove the NEA signals the elimination of free speech altogether. Think about it - when art and culture become viable only through private or corporate investment, they are subject to the whims and leanings of the financiers. The NEA provided resources without restriction or censor, allowing the pure expression of the artist, the citizen. Voices of discontent, jesters, satirists, demonstrators, windows to the souls of the underrepresented. A healthy nation supports culture as a pillar of society, of civilization as a whole. Culture contextualizes our priorities, it colors our empathy and compassion.
The NEA should be protected, and furthermore it should be the recipient of a majority of state lottery funds. Lottery is not taxpayer money, it is not subject to ownership and conditions. 

My next battle: Protecting Roe v. Wade / Planned Parenthood. When Kiran and I lost our twins, it kept resonating in my head that had we been in a hospital that had a religious affiliation, our ability to choose the future of our children and the health of their mother would be taken away from us, under no other justification than a religious doctrine. Not a medical report, but a religious belief, one that I don’t even practice. 

Protecting a woman’s right to choose is much bigger than abortion, it is about agency, and therefore consent, over our own bodies. Mike Pence has no right or qualification to decide what happens in a woman’s uterus. If he is willing to invade a woman’s personal space without her consent, he is assaulting her. The eliminations of those protections inflicts war upon women’s bodies, fractures the family unit and erodes the basic tenets of civilization. To revoke a woman’s right to choose is to strip her of self-determination, and makes her body a slave to the state, a state determined by religious doctrine. A doctrine that ignores the spiritual diversity of the nation.

My final issue: Climate Change. All of the aforementioned means jack shit if we don’t have a planet to live upon. Simple as that. Biological diversity is being annihilated, temperatures are rising, and we are defunding our efforts to explore space and accept the inevitability that the planet will no longer be able to sustain us.

Of course there’s so many more other issues that I care deeply about, that have as much value. Just because I choose not to put my full energies behind causes like marriage equality, universal healthcare, income inequality, police brutality, mass incarceration, education funding and gun control does not mean I care any less about them. But I truly feel we accomplish more when we do a few things focused and powerfully than many things at half-speed. Also there are battles I can directly impact because of my skillset and knowledge base. If I apply them to causes that are not germane, then I am not working smartly.
If we care about all and work on the details that we are best suited for, then perhaps we will start to collectively see the wholesale change we wish to achieve. Failure to do so will result in a muddled, unfocused echo chamber drowning in accusations of lack of inclusiveness. We become our own worst enemies when we lack focus. At least that’s my theory, and I’m going to give it a shot.

Donald Trump and The Age of Consent.

I won’t be watching the inauguration. Doesn’t make sense. I share John Lewis’ assertion that Donald Trump is not a legitimate president. Trump’s rebuttal to Lewis was shameful and embarrassing, an encapsulation of all that is wrong with Trump’s rise to power, which was built on slander, misinformation and hate. 

But - and there’s always a but - he will be holding office. He will be inaugurated. We, as in the nation, using the electoral college system that we have yet to formally challenge, elected Donald Trump into office. He will be our next president of the United States of America, the most powerful position in the world.

I have to believe that the Trump presidency is a tipping point in American and world history, a new era of thinking, action and reaction. We’re defined by these eras, deemed with formal titles like The Ice Age, The Dark Ages, The Age of Enlightenment and The Information Age. I’ll put forth a moniker for this new age ahead of us, and that is The Age of Consent. 

Of course in our current vernacular The Age of Consent connotes the age that an individual can consent to sex with an adult, and it seems apropos as our president is - confirmed by his own words, no less - a sexual predator. I chose it as a deliberate double entendre. 

So it’s pretty simple. Our human and constitutional rights says if someone wants to enter our personal space, be it our bodies, our homes or our information, they require our consent. If they do not have consent, then it is an assault. Donald Trump, Mike Pence, the GOP, Theresa May, Marie LePen and the like are all intent on invading our personal spaces without our consent. They want to take health insurance away from millions and defund Planned Parenthood, they want to categorize and divide us, they want to access our information and have zero transparency in return, they want to pump toxins into our environment without our approval. They are acting without our consent, they are assaulting us. 

When someone acts without consent, your have the legal right to fight back. The best example of this is the Dakota Pipeline, which was scheduled to go through protected Native American lands without the consent of its inhabitants. The tribes untied and demonstrated through non-violent assembly and noncompliance. This took heavy organization, months of time and plenty of donated financial and legal services. But they stood their ground. They persevered and they won. The most marginalized and disrespected community in the United States, the First Nations, stood up to the government and won. They said “not without our consent.” 

Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning exposed actions by our government to access our private lives without our consent. Mike Pence is leading a battle to control women’s bodies without their consent. Trump’s members of his family are being installed as our representatives without our consent. Our governments are no longer our allies, they are predators, working against our greater interests and assaulting our bodies, our children’s bodies and our collective futures. 

With the abolishment of consent comes a dreary lack of accountability. Media is reporting without fact checking, providing sensationalized yellow journalism clickbait that feeds right into the predator’s model.

The Age of Consent will be defined not only by violations of our right to agency, but also how we respond to such threats. Will we succumb to defeat, become numb and allow ourselves to be enslaved, or will we fight back using the single most historically-effective change agent at our disposal, that being civil disobedience? We cannot be taken advantage of if we refuse to consent, when we enforce our consent, and we protect each other’s consent. We do this by refusing to comply to the advances of predators. We do not give in. We question always. We stand firm when NO means NO. We do not give the predators the satisfaction of breaking our spirit. We absorb blows and heal collectively. When they strike one hand we offer the other, and allow their lack of humanity to reflect in the pools of our spilled blood. Where The Age of Consent begins with the assault on our agency, it will end and be replaced by The Age of Compassion. Where we suffer together, work together, and respect each other for who we are. 

The Age of Consent will be like walking to a buzzsaw. Many of us will be hurt, our rights violated. We will be temped to strike back with the same hatred and vitriol inflicted upon us. We will not. We will let our anger be known, but we will not strike back. They will see their hatred and ugliness reflected in our defiance. We will always maintain the upper hand when we do not comply, when we work as one, when our resolve is strong.

When the system doesn’t work for you, you are not obligated to work for it. You do not give your consent to evil, to injustice.

Be strong. Be focused. If you are confused then ask questions, seek help from those who share your resolve. Communicate. It is essential that we all stay on the same page, on point, and committed towards the common goal. We will not allow our basic right to agency be trampled.

This will be the inauguration of the American people standing against the idiocracy. The Next Greatest Generation will be born. We can and will do this!

2016 in Review, Back for 2017

I guess I needed a long break. After five years of writing nonstop on this blog, starting Z2 Comics / Modern Prometheus, processing the election year, touring 6 Angry Women around the country and taking care of a now 2-year old at home, writing on this blog took an inevitable backseat. One of my 2017 resolutions is to return to writing. Even as I dive into this paragraph, I realize I’ve missed the excitement of letting my thoughts on film, art and politics come to form. It’s nice to return. I know so many of you have rightfully left these familiar waters, but I hope you return and that new readers will join on. There’s a lot to discuss.

Let’s start with 2016, aka The Year Everything Died. And I’m not just talking about celebrity deaths, which no doubt gutted me. My heroes in Prince, Bowie and George Michael, all who played a role in defining my art and my masculinity, are dead, all far too young. Our idols are dying. 

I’m also not talking about just the election either, where our collective common sense took a nosedive off a bridge. Trump is who he is, he’s our president, and we elected him. It’s done. We sleep in the bed we made. It’s Trump. It’s Brexit. It’s LePen. It’s Putin. It’s patriotism. It’s poison, and we need to detoxify. 

It’s also the year when journalism died, where yellow journalism has provided safe spaces for radicalized cliques. Yes, safe spaces. Places where white supremacy can become organized and have a voice in the Alt-Right. Places where liberal myopia can conveniently label all those not living in The Bubble as ignorant, uneducated, and barbaric. Social media and internet journalism has brought strangers together and torn the community of the world into bite-sized hamlets. 

But you know what? I’m tired of being apocalyptic. I’m tired of saying we’re all fucked. It’s like being on a sinking ship and telling everyone that the chances of all of us dying are pretty good. What does that accomplish? 

Doesn’t mean I’m going to bury my head in the sand and pretend everything is going to be alright. I want to take the scientific approach. Find out what’s wrong first and then start devising solutions. Not a giant, all-encompassing solution, but rather small ones that can add up to one giant one. Can’t do that by myself, it needs to be a group effort.

If I have to find a silver lining to this all, it’s that 2016 has exposed everything. We can no longer hide from our problems. We can’t say we’re a post-racial society. We can’t say there is gender equality. This is the hottest year on record for our planet - we can no longer deny humanity’s impact on the climate. We can’t say the fifth estate is intact and that we have accountability. We can’t say nostalgia is harmless. We can’t say black men aren’t being killed by the police. We can’t declare All Lives Matter when the body counts continue to rise around the world. Complaining is not action. Awareness is only a start, not a solution. The internet is a source of information, not a replacement for human interaction. The world only gets fixed if we step out the door and work with our hands. 

We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re now aware of the problems, and it’s up to us to fix things. This is not complaining, this is a call to action. 

And let us never forget that the world is still a beautiful place, filled with wonderment and creativity. In the muck of 2016, it is art which kept my soul on life support. Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was one of those trancendent pieces of music that helped me process grief in the Year Everything Died. It was a sloppy, loose blast of emotional honesty in a time of severe cynicism. 

Barry Jenkins’ film Moonlight was a quiet, poetic love story housed in a muscular and hard world, a journey of finding our souls in the chaff. It is beauty when we need it most, a redefinition of everything we thought was gospel. Masculinity, love, poverty, predestination all challenged with the slightest of hand, a sledgehammer wielded with grace. I left the theater transformed. 

I lost myself in Donald Glover’s brilliant Atlanta, a masterful embrace of outsider weirdness that I relate to all too well. It challenges everything. Everything. It’s the best television I’ve seen in a very, very long time. 

In November I embarked on a tour of the American south, taking 6 Angry Women to screens in six states, from small towns to major college campuses. It was my first time in the south, and showing my art to people who disagreed with my politics was an eye-opening experience. We didn’t antagonize one another. We didn’t retreat to our like-minded cliques. Instead we found our commonalities before we discussed our differences. We agreed to respect one another before we talked our beliefs. We exercised empathy. It was a beautiful experience for me, especially after the election. I gained perspective from people I assumed I knew through reading only. Nothing matches meeting your neighbors face-to-face. Nothing. 

As we prepare for 2017, let’s work on finding our common ground. Find what we share before we denounce the differences. When we do that, we start every conversation with emotional honesty. With respect. With dignity. 

Here’s looking forward to the work ahead. There will be many roadblocks, and negativity will be overbearing at times. We fight extremism and hate with peaceful, non-violent noncompliance. Our most viable action is to not participate in extremism. Sit it out. Even if you are forced, do not comply. Even if you are beaten, do not comply. Do not provide the energy of your life to fuel injustice towards others. Save it for love, because love conquers all. Save it for your art, because art is a universal language. Save it for humanity, because our compassion is the very root of civilization. Save it for the planet, which needs us more than ever.

So long, 2016. You were a real asshole. But thank you for showing us that we are vulnerable, for forcing us to admit to our mistakes and shortcomings. You’ve done your thing, now please, please, go the fuck away. 

Let’s get this thing going. Refresh. Restart. Rebuild.

Obituary: Prince (1958-2016)

I never thought I’d get torn up as much as I have about Prince passing away. Bowie affected me, Cobain and Jeff Buckley shocked me, MCA and Phife made me incredibly sad. But Prince…I guess I hadn’t realized just how much a part of my life he was. I found myself welling with tears with every tribute I saw today, which just doesn’t happen.

I remember hearing Prince for the first time - or at least paying attention to him - when Purple Rain came out. I was nine years old. I remember seeing the movie and actually laughing at it, because Prince was just so…silly…to a nine year old. Those clothes! The purpleness! But then the title track came, and something just sort of clicked. A few weeks later I bought the cassette at K-Mart, and listened. And listened. And listened. I think for the first time, I felt the weight of drama. Epic emotion.

Prince’s music made me feel a lot of things. A lot of it surrounded with dreaming about girls. About sex. About processing that part of your brain that overrides all other desires. It wasn’t coded or cryptic (wait wait wait Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” was about masturbation?), I heard a song like “Gett Off” and there were no doubts. I straight up wanted to FUCK Ms. Diamond and Ms. Pearl, both ladies together in 23 positions, all to that grinding bassline. And you know what? Prince made it ok to think that. It wasn’t obscene, it was straight up erotic.

Prince gave me permission to be young. To be brash and aroused. To love and cherish love. Then he writes a song like “Nothing Compares 2 U” and it contextualizes everything. He gives that gift to Sinead O'Connor and she, with a single tear, turned me from a horny young teenager who never experienced actual romantic loss into someone who felt the pains of a broken heart. All through a song.

And then an embarrassing admission - for many years, I didn’t even know Prince was black. He didn’t fit the mould of the black folks around me when I was a kid, I just assumed he was “other.” Once I learned of his ethnicity, he challenged everything I knew about black identity. About model minorities, masculinity and manhood. He opened me up and freed me from archetypes, and I became a part of his tribe. I could claim something so much deeper, for me at least. “Alphabet Street” transforms from a funky ditty to a claim of territory. The man who embodied sex was one of us. I aspired to his confidence. He was my Marvin Gaye, my Smokey Robinson, my Black Elvis.

Kurt Cobain, Blixa Bargeld, PJ Harvey and Trent Reznor all came along and pushed everything that I loved of pop / R&B/ soul deep down inside, revealing a still-bleeding scab of wanting to be noticed. Prince took a back seat to nihilism, but the slabs of guitars from grunge / industrial / metal actually made me appreciate Prince’s guitar virtuosity all the more. I listen to that guitar on “When Doves Cry,” and it sounds metal as fuck. The drum signatures are almost Kraftwerk-ian. In exploring other music, it dawned on me that Prince really could do it all. And again - he was one of us. When my wife and I saw him live in 2001, it all came together in a glorious four hour show that I’ll never, ever forget.

I’ll never turn off a Prince song. There’s always something new going on. Even with constant change, he remained consistent in wanting us to feel love in all its myriad permutations. “Black Sweat” is dope as hell. “Crystal Ball” as epic as any song ever made. And then I learned that he’d lost his newborn son a week after he was born, and that through all of this he remained as prolific as ever. That he tirelessly fought for creative control, for artists rights, for agency. That he committed millions of dollars and his time to social justice.

Then he died.

And with that death, so many of my memories no longer remain fluid. They are now etched in stone, the chapter closed. The reality that I will no longer grow up along with Prince is what makes me most sad. My son will have his art, but it will remain antiquity. Lessons. I only pray that an artistic and creative force emerges in his formative years to say the things he doesn’t want to hear from me, to allow him to feel without restriction, to dream of sensation.

There’s a gift a generation carries. Each has their own. Prince was ours.

Essay: Bernie or Bust?

I was very disappointed by last night’s primary, not so much by the outcome but moreso by the reports of how insanely difficult it was for citizens to vote in the Democratic Party. Plenty of fingers to point, and NO this isn’t some Clinton conspiracy; the rules are the problem, not the participants. Just like Arizona, there is a clear case for voter fraud, and it should be investigated. I had a friend in NYC tell me it took four hours for him and his wife to cast their ballots, after much paper shuffling, checking and rigmarole. Apparently in New York and Arizona it is easier to acquire a handgun than it is to participate in a primary.

The backlash is there. The Sanders supporters, of which I proudly count myself as one, are still angered by a system in which those registered as Independents - as I had been up until this year, so that I could vote for Sanders - are consistently marginalized by the Constitutional right to not play in a corrupted party game. But as an Independent you can still vote in the general elections.

I vouch for Sanders staying in the race until the Democratic convention. He keeps transforming Hillary Clinton into the candidate I want to see (fifteen dollars!); whether she keeps up on her revisions is yet to be seen. I have my personal doubts, but she is who she is, and she has been on the right side of many, but not on very key (war, death penalty, campaign finance), progressive agendas. But the calls from the DNC for Sanders to quit are ridiculous. To say that people in California and so many other states will no longer be able to cast their vote for the candidate they want, even if it is a moot point, is a slap in the face for democracy. People should be allowed to vote for their candidate of choice.

That said, barring a comeback from Sanders (which can happen) or god forbid an FBI indictment, it appears Hillary will achieve the nomination. There are many Sanders supporters who are vouching for Sanders as a third party candidate or as a write-in for President. Bernie or Bust. As much as this appeals to me personally - I see the money he has raised, the following he has accrued - we have to be pragmatic here.

In the general election, should Hillary Clinton achieve the nomination, she requires the support of all progressives, whether they, in relation to Sanders, like her or not. It seems counterintuitive to democracy, to vote for someone whom you don’t fundamentally agree with, but right now the system we have is broken. We focus our efforts on changing the legislation of elections, something Bernie has ignited our passion for unlike any other candidate in history, but to turn our back on Clinton as a protest, at this very moment, is ill timed. Had it been a sensible GOP running against her, maybe this would be a wise act of civil disobedience, but with the current crop of GOP, who threaten our climate, our right to choose, our multicultural fabric, to choose now to turn your back on Hillary Clinton is foolish and, frankly, dangerous.

I will continue to support Bernie Sanders right up to the DNC Convention. I will continue to donate to his campaign until he, and not the media or the Clinton campaign, decides to suspend his campaign. His is a fight worth supporting. But after the DNC, once the decision has been made, it is time to take that same concern for our country and planet we shared with Sanders, and place it behind the candidate that still supports a woman’s right to choose, LGBT rights and the health of children. We have to hold Clinton’s feet to the flames over banking and Wall Street, over fracking, over Palestine, over her inclination towards nation building and war, just as we should for any candidate. It is our right to question authority.

I’ve said it before - this is an ugly election season. I haven’t seen this much division in the Democratic party in a very long time. I haven’t seen the GOP in this kind of disarray ever. For me it is a sign that both parties are poisoned, and it explains why disenfranchisement is so high, why there are so many Independents who are leaning Sanders or Trump. Both candidates have exposed the glaring weaknesses in their respective parties; Sanders has exposed the corruption in the election process, i.e. the very root of democracy, and Trump has exposed the festering sore of racism, xenophobia and bigotry that still holds so much of our progress as a nation hostage. The status quo and the old way of doing things, of trying to be moderates in the time of extremes, died a long time ago. Very sobering.

What do you think?