Interview-20 questions with Steve Barnes and Tananarive Due

Steve Barnes and Tananarive Due are two of the more interesting and successful writers of speculative fiction, horror, fantasy and sci-fi working today. They also happen to be married to each other. Barnes and Due occasionally write together, which sounds as if it must be the coolest thing since sliced bread. One of their latest joint creations is the just released Devil's Wake  which is a zombie novel, primarily but not exclusively aimed at the young adult market.

Barnes in particular has been an influence on my own blogging style. Barnes can be a very inspirational and uplifting writer. He seems to almost practice a relentless positivity. Due has written one of the freshest and most imaginative adaptations of vampirism and immortality this side of True Blood or Brian Lumley. If you haven't read Due's My Soul to Keep, you are missing out.  I've written before of my enjoyment of both Barnes' Lion's Blood series and the Barnes/Due Tennyson Hardwick series. Due has received an NAACP image award as well as an American Book Award. Barnes has written screenplays for works as diverse as Stargate SG-1 and The Outer Limits. One of these days I need to get around to reviewing Barnes' Blood Brothers, one of his earlier and darker novels. Barnes and Due are not only authors but each have numerous other skills, talents and interests including but not limited to martial arts, yoga, civil rights, journalism, teaching, life coaching and personal development. They each inspire you to kick things up a notch in your life and let go of your fears. A great thing about blogging is that you get to interact with quite talented people that you would otherwise never meet.

I thought you might be interested in reading an Urban Politico interview with the nation's hardest working husband and wife writing team. They were gracious enough to take time out of some extremely busy schedules to answer some questions for our readers. Thanks to Steve and Tananarive for their time. And now without further ado here's the interview with Steve Barnes and Tananarive Due. I hope you enjoy it.

The Urban Politico: Tell us about Devil’s Wake. Give us a short description-characters, plot, etc.

Steve Barnes: Devil's Wake is basically a story of survival, friendship and romance set against the background of the Zombie Apocalypse.

The Urban Politico: Why zombies and why now?

Tananarive Due: We have both always loved zombies.  Years ago, we came up with a zombie premise for our first short story collaboration, “Danger Word,” which appeared in Brandon Massey’s Dark Dreams anthology. We always intended to write a novel set in that world entitled Devil's Wake—but first it took a detour as a television pitch (no chance against the show “Jericho,” which had a similar small-town-after-the-fall feel to it) before reappearing in a novel form.

Steve Barnes: The horror field has always spoken to current fears. Zombies are just the latest in a long line. That said, they represent alienation, consumerism, immigration, depersonalization, and the terror of a changing world. That's a great grab-bag of emotional imagery to play with.

The Urban Politico: Devil’s Wake is first in a series, correct? Do you know how long the series will be?

Steve Barnes: As long as both we and readers are engaged. I can clearly see a point where the current story resolves, but as with all things in life, that just opens new doors and possibilities.

The Urban Politico: How has the world of speculative fiction and horror changed since you each started?

Tananarive Due: In terms of being a black author of speculative fiction, the biggest change for me has been the lost sense of cohesion after Octavia E. Butler passed away in 2006.  There are new, strong writers in the field, like Nnedi Okorafor, but it has been too long since we gathered as a group to share experiences and identify ourselves as a part of a thriving niche.  I miss that heightened sense of community.  (I hope to change that during my time as Cosby Chair in the Humanities at Spelman College.) 

Aside from that, I think most “genre” fiction was in the midst of a growth spurt when I started publishing in the mid-1990s.  I was embraced by the horror field right away, but my primary audience was black women—and many of them heard about me through the independent black bookstores like Marcus Books in Oakland.  Now, I think horror, science fiction and African-American book publishers are in the midst of leaner times overall. The horror field has grown vampire weary, as I learned when my publisher didn’t want to use the word blood in my latest African Immortals book, My Soul to Take, which I originally wanted to call Blood Prophecy. 

But everything is cyclical.  Our original idea for Devil’s Wake preceded the zombie book trend and AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” but we are appearing in the thick of it.  Sometimes good timing is accidental.

Steve Barnes: The images have gone more mainstream.

The Urban Politico: When did you each know you were going to be a professional writer? Was there a singular event?

Tananarive Due: I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was four, literally—but in some ways, I really don’t feel that I knew I would be a professional writer until I sold my first novel, The Between.  At the time, I had been working at the Miami Herald for five or six years, writing in my spare time.  I felt very confident after college and graduate school, where I’d made creative leaps and seen myself develop a professional prose style for pages at a time, but I didn’t know if I would ever make a professional sale for publication until my agent called me to let me know that HarperCollins had made an offer on my first novel.  Just two weeks before, I’d had a piece of fiction rejected by a local college literary magazine, so I tell writers all the time that you don’t know how close or far you are sometimes—you just have to keep writing.

Steve Barnes: My third year in college. I entered a writing contest, the winner to read his story to an alumni group. I won, and as I read the story, watching their faces, I realized that this was the greatest love of my life. I dropped out of college and went to work.

The Urban Politico: How has the internet and associated phenomena such as Facebook and illegal file sharing helped or hurt your business model?

Tananarive Due: I don’t yet have any personal knowledge of illegal file sharing having an impact on my work. But a recent book-signing in Atlanta was a testament to the power of Facebook and social media—when we asked which members of the audience had heard about our signing through Facebook, nearly everyone present raised their hands.

Steve Barnes: It sure scares the industry. Epublishing is great for those with a good relationship with the left side of their brains.

The Urban Politico: What’s one thing (and it might be different) that you wish readers or would be writers knew about writing?

Tananarive Due: I don’t think there is enough respect in general for the time it takes to write consistently good fiction. Too many people think they will master writing overnight, or that they are as good as they will ever be.

Steve Barnes: That it is amazingly hard and insecure...and you should only do it if any other choice is harder still, emotionally.

The Urban Politico: Have you ever felt pressure (external or internal) to write more or even solely Caucasian protagonists? If so how have you dealt with that?

Tananarive Due: No editor has ever asked me to write a novel with a white protagonist, although I certainly understand that to do so might widen my appeal.  Or would it?  I know I write my best work when my characters are different versions of myself—and while I have certainly written non-black characters, I was so stamped by an upbringing by civil rights activists in a newly-integrated Southern neighborhood that racial issues tend to provide a subtle underpinning to my themes and events.  Do I believe that my books would have won more crossover readers if my characters were white?  Perhaps, if I had found the right themes to sustain my creative interest.  But my hope is to find more universal appeal by writing more truthfully about the deeply personal—so my main protagonists are always likely to represent a racial metaphor of some kind even if they’re not black. 

Steve Barnes: Sure. In a perfect world, I would have written fewer white characters--but I have this odd compulsion to eat.  

The Urban Politico: What’s it like working with another writer when you are also married to them? Do your writing styles complement each other? Do you take turns writing chapters and/or edit each other’s work?

Tananarive Due: I had never collaborated in fiction before I met Steve, and it isn’t always a comfortable process for me. I characterize collaboration as twice the work and half the power, so a project really has to jump out as a collaboration before I would choose anything above writing solo.  Steve is beautiful to collaborate with because he’s so strong with plot and structure, and can think so quickly on his feet.  At our best, we can create a kind of jazz riffing that feels nearly as spontaneous as solo writing—but with twice the brain power.  At worst, we might argue over plot or execution.  No matter how much you talk it out, sometimes the vision you discussed looks very different when the other writer puts it on paper.

           

We never sit over each other’s shoulders. I write the first drafts for the Tennyson Hardwick mystery novels (South By Southeast comes out September 18th) and Steve writes first drafts on the Devil's Wake novels.

Steve Barnes: We plan the stories together, and then one or the other of us writes the first draft.

The Urban Politico: I like reading each of your works because I know that the black man/woman isn’t automatically going to die first and won’t be a stereotype. Why is that still so common in some fiction?

Tananarive Due: I truly think there is a deep longing in our social fabric for a time of “happiness” when there was a permanent, loyal domestic class, or the myth of that time, which leads to Sacrificial Negro imagery. Aside from that, it’s a cheap way for filmmakers to show “Danger ahead!” without having to kill off one of the white characters—like Loss Lite.

Steve Barnes: Because human beings are hierarchical, and place themselves higher on the hierarchy than they place others. So characters die in the approximate order of perceived value or audience discomfort. Ugly implication, but there you are. If blacks were in charge, you'd see white guys dying nobly to protect their black friends, sob sob.

The Urban Politico: Hollywood and black drama-changing for the better? What can the black (or any) audience do to help that along?

Tananarive Due: First, audiences have to support quality films in droves. There is little that black audiences can do to coax white filmgoers to join them, but if the projects don’t get the support from the black audience, that could be the end of that particular artistic conversation for the next five or ten years.  I’m an enthusiastic supporter of Sundance winner Ava DuVernay, who is writing, directing and producing her dramas from black life—stories about people who happen to be black, not stereotypical “black people” of the popular cinema.  Her film Middle of Nowhere opens in October, and I’m looking forward to it! 

Steve Barnes: Yes, it is. But what I'm waiting for is for black actors to get love scenes in major films. So far, that's a guarantee of box office death. White audiences just avoid that like the plague.

The Urban Politico: Who are some of your top influences as far as other writers? Who are some up and coming writers you think people should know about?

Tananarive Due: My earliest influences were probably Judy Blume, Stephen King and Toni Morrison.  There are too many great writers out there to name, but readers who like my work should definitely try Nnedi Okorafor and Nalo Hopkinson, if they haven’t already.

Steve Barnes: I love the classics: Shakespeare and Aristotle. And modern classics and masters: Stephen King, Robert Heinlein, John D. MacDonald, Octavia Butler, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard and Ian Fleming. I admire Nnedi Okorafor.

The Urban Politico: Is there still a distinction between literary and commercial work? Do you self-consciously try to write in one style or another at a given time?

Tananarive Due: I really loathe the categories of “literary” and “commercial,” and I think too many writers cripple themselves artistically by swearing too much by one identity or the other.  I try to write well-written page-turners.  I want them to sell, so I hope they’re commercial—but I want the quality to stand the test of time, so I hope they’re literary.

Steve Barnes: Literary writing references the body of previous literature. Commercial fiction is more concerned with story telling. I'm a story teller.

The Urban Politico: Steve, you used a phrase once which really struck me. You wrote of “sacrificing your melanin on the altar of your testosterone”. Can you explain what that means?

Steve Barnes: Sure. In order to find images of vigorous masculinity, I read books with heroes like Tarzan, Conan, James Bond, and Mike Hammer. All either excluded black people, or depicted them as basically sub-human. 

The Urban Politico: Steve, Lion’s Blood and Zulu Heart are made into movies. Who plays Kai? Aidan O’Dere? Nandi? Lamiya? Will we see a Zulu Heart sequel?

Steve Barnes: I honestly don't know about casting. There are more African-featured actors in the field these days, from Idris Elba to Djimon Hansou.

The Urban Politico: Tananarive, does teaching help make you a better writer?

Tananarive Due: I’m having to learn again how to juggle a full-time job with my writing, but overall I do think teaching can make writers better simply because it reminds us of how hard we have worked, and still must work, to pursue our dream.  Working with learning writers makes that quest feel fresh again.

The Urban Politico: You both do so many different things. Simultaneously!! What’s the secret? How do you stay balanced?

Tananarive Due: Believe it or not, I don’t believe I’m a great multi-tasker, so it takes constant practice. I exercise, I meditate, make to-do lists, and play a lot of Angry Birds in spare moments.

Steve Barnes: The work is something I do, not who I am.The trick is to continue to associate with your true self, what part from which the action and creativity arises.

The Urban Politico: If you were going to recommend one of your books to someone who wasn’t familiar with your work, which book would that be and why?

Tananarive Due: I think My Soul to Keep has really emerged as a reader favorite.  It’s more ambitious novel than my first, The Between, and it spawned three sequels—so that’s usually the first book I recommend. 

Steve Barnes: Lion's Blood.

The Urban Politico: Roughly how long does it take you to create a novel from concept to final edit?

Tananarive Due: I generally write a novel in one or two years, depending on how many other projects I’m juggling.

Steve Barnes: Roughly a year, but stretched across about four years--I have multiple projects going at once.

The Urban Politico: Are there some other future projects or plans that you can share with us now?

Tananarive Due: My next project will be a screenplay.  But I’m adhering to the sage writing advice that says not to talk about the project—just write it. This one, I fear, has had far too much talking and not nearly enough writing.  I haven’t written a screenplay in a long time, and I’m ready to jump back in.

Steve Barnes: Yes, I have a movie project I'm not quite ready to talk about. Please keep your fingers crossed!

Tananarive Due blogs at
http://tananarivedue.blogspot.com/
http://www.tananarivedue.com/ 
http://tananarivedue.wordpress.com/

Steven Barnes blogs at http://darkush.blogspot.com/ and helps people bring about positive change in their lives at http://www.diamondhour.com/. He also hosts a regular podcast which discusses personal improvement, growth and how to apply transformative techniques to your own life.
Each writer also maintains an extremely active presence on Facebook.

Movie Reviews-Breaking Bad (Season 3), Lockout, A Clockwork Orange

Breaking Bad (Season Three)
created by Vince Gilligan

The hits just keep on coming in this AMC series. Walter White's (Bryan Cranston) cancer is in remission but his personal life is in a shambles. He made a simple mistake which dismantled the web of lies that he spun to keep his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) ignorant of his work. As Walter was sedated and readied for surgery he accidentally confirmed having a second cell phone.That was all it took to change a previously supportive, if rather pushy wife, into an alternately raging harridan and cold as ice enemy. One wouldn't think that such a small slip-up could cause such havoc but then again there is that saying about women, fury and hell. Skyler is insanely angry at Walter's lies. She thinks he made a fool out of her. She checks on Walter's stories and doesn't like what she finds. At first I was a bit sympathetic to her but shortly thereafter my sympathy dissipated.

Walter might be feeling his oats in the criminal world but as far as Skyler is concerned he's just a lying no good drug dealing s.o.b. And Walter doesn't have the cojones of a Michael Corleone to tell Skyler "Don't ask me about my business!!!!". And Skyler wouldn't accept such dismissal even if Walter tried it. She kicks him out of their house and starts considering divorce. Skyler also does something which will hurt Walter much more than he's hurt her. I mean it's like using a nuclear bomb in response to a minor border dispute. As I mentioned earlier this show is greatly different from Weeds in that events have consequences. Nobody who interacts with drugs or crime gets away clean. There are always costs, great or small. Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte) is confused by his parents' fights and sides with his father.
In Season Two Walter and a drugged out Jesse (Aaron Paul) had a business dispute that spun out of control and through a six degrees of separation sort of causality cost Jesse the life of his girlfriend, Jane. It also caused Jane's air traffic controller father to lose focus with equally tragic results and made Walter construct even more elaborate internal justifications and lies about his responsibility for his actions.

In Season Three Walter and Jesse are estranged. Jesse is looking for more respect and independence from Walter. Walter finds it difficult not to talk down to Jesse. Once he gets through rehab a newly sober and even more amoral Jesse wants to start cooking meth again while a depressed Walter attempts to win Skyler back. Walter doesn't want to make meth anymore if it will cost him his family. It doesn't help that Walter admitted the depth of his involvement to Skyler, who had already figured out most of it. There are some interesting questions raised about Western customs of domestic conflict. Why is it when there is a fight between a man and a woman it's the man who has to sleep on the couch or leave the house? I never understood that.

But Walter has worse problems than a shrewish wife. Gus (Giancarlo Esposito), Walter's new distributor, also has business relationships with the Mexican cartels. Gus owns several fast food franchises and is considered a community pillar. It's not absolutely clear to me whether Gus distributes for the cartels or if he is just in an uneasy partnership. I think it's the second. It turns out that the crazy degenerate Tuco from Season One and Two, who was killed by Hank, actually had familial cartel links. His invalid uncle used to be a cartel leader of some ferocity. And that old man has set his other nephews (twin deadly assassins) on Walter's track to avenge their cousin's death. The cartel is not exactly concerned if Gus agrees with this decision. The current cartel boss likes Gus but when push comes to shove he's going to side with his countrymen. Gus likes Walter as much as he likes anyone , which really isn't saying all that much. He doesn't like Jesse. 

Meanwhile Walter's always slimy lawyer and fixer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) is still scheming to make sure he gets his cut of the action while Hank (Dean Norris), operating both on fear and stubbornness, finally has a name (Jesse), face and vehicle to link to the blue meth that he's obsessed with stopping. Like I wrote before Hank may come across as Macho Meathead -and he is- but he's also a pretty good detective. He's starting to make some connections back to Walter. The show amps up this tension nicely as Hank notices some previously undetected backbone in Walter. It also contrasts the deterioration of Walter's and Skyler's marriage with the relative resiliency of Hank's and Marie's (Betsy Brandt). Carmen Serrano has a supporting role as School Principal Carmen Molina, on whom Walter has a crush. He makes goo-goo eyes at her when he thinks she's not looking. Walter starts to find it almost impossible to keep up appearances at school. 

The Gus Fring character really came into his own this year. Much like Vito Corleone he places a high value on politesse, rationality and making sure the other guy gets a fair deal. Gus seemingly likes Walter and enjoys Walter's smarts. Gus smiles and shows people what they want to see. But just like that other fictional gangster, Gus maintains his calmness as a veneer over a very cold, devious and brutal nature. And his smiles are often the smile the shark gives to the seal. Gus is scary not just because he can be vicious. He works in a vicious business after all. Gus' ace in the hole is his intelligence. He's normally at least three steps ahead of everyone, including the arrogant Walter, who still thinks he's smarter than any other criminal. Walter is an extremely proud man. Pride is the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Whereas Season Two was more concerned about the meat and potatoes of hiding criminal behavior and rewards from a spouse and the IRS, Season Three dives deeper into the day to day criminal lifestyle. It pulls the covers back and shows the nasty and violent actions of people that reside within Walter's new world, whether it's a fallen angel street hooker that may service 50 men a day or silent killers who murder people with the same emotion you or I might order a cup of coffee. Mike (Jonathan Banks) gets more screen time. He is a world weary former cop and current investigator for Saul but his true allegiance is to someone else. Depending on his orders he can be either a guardian angel or angel of death for Walter. He's a vibrant grandfatherly man.  If need be he'll put two in your head and then go pick up his granddaughter from day care without missing a beat. This season had lots of twists and turns that led up to some tough decisions and a shocking climax. Walter is finding out that you can't be half a gangster.

There is a song by Ike and Tina Turner titled "Up in Heah" which I like a lot. It chronicles the fall of a naive church going girl into a degraded street woman. One stanza reads

It's cold on this path of evil/The dew falls heavy and hard

While I wait at bars and grills/Commercial love, commercial thrills

But I remember the righteous living/And doing all I knew for good

If I could change this corruption, you know I would if I only could

But now I'm the Daughter of Evil/And I'm trying to get you up in heah!

Those lyrics apply to a lot of people in Breaking Bad, Walter White most of all.
Season 3 Trailer Promo

Lockout
directed by James Mather

There are two, count em two black men with major speaking roles in this film. One of them is thoroughly incompetent. He is the cause of the prison outbreak, gets himself and his charge lost and winds up killing himself to save a white person. The second one is not incompetent but proves to be evil. So just that right there left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
Basically this is Escape from New York but in space. If that appeals to you then give this a chance. If not just keep moving. The story is pretty predictable. Predictability is ok sometimes but it didn't work for me in this movie, racial hang-ups aside. The movie's hook is that in the future, the US government has created a orbital space prison, in which prisoners are kept in suspended animation for their sentence duration. Now that right there seems problematic. The whole point of sending someone dangerous to prison for a long time is so that if they ever do get out they will be older and feebler with depleted testosterone, lowered aggression and hopefully will be much easier for society to handle. Violent crime is a young man's game. Why in the world would you put someone in suspended animation and then bring them out years later with the same youth and aggression they went in with??? Makes no sense.

Suspecting that the real reason for this prison is just to examine the effects of suspended animation on human beings, the US President's daughter Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace) insists upon taking a fact finding goodwill mission to the prison station (MS-1) in hopes of exposing corporate and government malfeasance. That this would bring down her father's administration seems not to have crossed her mind.

Meanwhile back on earth maverick CIA agent Snow (Guy Pearce) (who evidently worked out a LOT for this role-let us go and do likewise gentlemen) is involved in a double cross shootout where his buddy Frank is killed and his shady contact Mace disappears with some critical information. Secret Service director Langral (Peter Stomare) oversees a blink and you missed it trial in which Snow is convicted of murdering Frank and selling classified information. Secret Service agent Harry Shaw (Lennie James) tries to talk secretly to Snow to get his side of the story. I'm not up on all the interlocking responsibilities of the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies but it seems like the CIA, not the Secret Service would be taking the lead here. Anyway Snow is about to be sent on a one way trip to MS-1 when everyone gets news that there's been a breakout on MS-1. The prisoners have hostages, including Emilie. Of course Emilie is a take charge tough as nails woman who doesn't think she needs rescuing.

The brain trust gets the bright idea to sneak Snow up there, have him use his super secret spy skills to find Emilie, get her past 400 angry and very horny convicts, and use the escape pods to get her back to Earth. The other hostages? Stinks to be them.
There is a subplot about how one wicked convict looks after his even more wicked and insane little brother, but really I didn't care too much. Pearce is wasted in this movie imo. Visually however, the film delivers some goods but I just couldn't get past what I thought was a weak story. YMMV. If it's on and you have nothing better to do....
TRAILER

A Clockwork Orange
directed by Stanley Kubrick

This is a classic film which I first saw in college. I was and am a Kubrick fan. When I first saw this I was also somewhat socially alienated so it worked for me on that level as well. However when I recommended to it a woman associate of mine a few years back she could not get past the violence, particularly the sexual violence. I rewatched it recently. I'm still not bothered by the violence though I can certainly see how some people would be. It is sometimes stylized and operatic and at other times shockingly realistic. I would disagree that the film glories in violence or is sexist it but it certainly doesn't condemn violence-at least not on the most accessible level for viewers. It can be disturbing. It's not for people under 18 by any means. So if violence bothers you this film is not for you. It came out in 1971 and initially received a X rating, likely for brief full frontal nudity. Kubrick recut it to get an R rating but then withdrew it from British theaters due to controversy over real life copycat violence. Despite the initial rating this movie was Oscar nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, losing to The French Connection. It should have won. It's visually stunning. Kubrick is at the top of his game.

This film could be considered something of a satire. But besides the violence, this film has a lot to say about the balance of power between the state and the individual, not just in the peculiarly American constitutional sense but in the larger human question of who gets to decide right and wrong-your conscience or the majority of your fellow citizens? The state? God? I thought with the brouhaha over ObamaCare, the controversies over gun control, and both Left and Right authoritarians seeking to extend government influence or even control over citizens in different aspects of their lives this might be a good film to discuss. In Kubrick's view the violence was necessary to the story and critical to the larger point he was trying to make. This was based on a novel. The author, Anthony Burgess, thought that the religious aspects of Free Will were also an important part of the story.

A Clockwork Orange also has a fair number of film techniques that were either invented by Kubrick or became extremely closely associated with him. There's the close-up stare which Kubrick also used in The Shining and other films, lurid cinematography, camera work which is very direct with not much sideways motion, super wide lenses and most spectacularly a camera thrown out of a window to depict a suicide! This film is also famous for the mostly classical music soundtrack, much of which was adapted and arranged by musical genius Walter (soon thereafter Wendy) Carlos. Along with Carlos' Switched On Bach, the soundtrack rewrote the book on what could be done with a Moog synthesizer. Carlos' reworking of Purcell's Death of Queen Mary opens the film. Carlos does such a great job with this that I was truly shocked to discover that Purcell, not Carlos wrote it.

So what's this film about? In a nutshell, it's about free will. In a dystopic England, much of the inner cities have been lost to various gangs of young hoodlums, who, amped up on drugged milk, spend their nights (and occasionally days) aimlessly engaged in petty theft, mindless sex, even more mindless fighting, and every so often rape, murder and home invasions. One such youth is Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the particularly vicious and unlikable leader of three other thugs, Dim, Pete and Georgie. Alex is the literal incarnation of chaotic evil. He is the sort of person who reads The Bible and wishes he were the soldier scourging Jesus or an Old Testament leader getting to know his wives' handmaidens. His only saving grace is that he is a classical music fan-primarily Beethoven.

Alex and his "droogs" or friends, commit more and more crimes until his so-called friends rebel against Alex's high-handed ways and betray him to the police after he's committed a murder. In prison Alex makes plans to get out while trying to avoid getting raped. There's a new technique which the fascist government intends to use to make criminals averse to sex and violence, and set them free, believing that it needs to have space in prisons for intellectuals, liberals, political dissidents, civil libertarians and writers. Alex volunteers for this treatment, thinking he can beat it.
He can't.

It's a mark of Kubrick's skill that he could make you feel a twinge of sympathy for Alex or more likely a bit of disgust for the government. Do you think that the government has the right to take away your free will if you've been convicted of a crime? You may feel differently after watching this film. Kubrick definitely did not believe that the end justified the means or that authoritarian personalities are good things, whether they come from the Right or the Left. David Prowse, who would shortly after be seen, but not heard as Darth Vader, has a role in this movie. The white clothing, bowler hats, codpieces and boots would be used by famous musicians such as John Bonham while the film itself would inspire numerous other actors and directors. Heath Ledger claimed that Alex was one starting point for his portrayal of The Joker.
OPENING SCENE                 TRAILER

Zoe Saldana, Nina Simone, Race, Skin Tone and Hollywood

What do you think about supposed plans to have Zoe Saldana play Nina Simone in a movie?

“One of the first things that you think about when you think of someone for these projects, is you’re going to try to make it believable in terms of appearance,” Simone Kelly, daughter of the late singer/songwriter, tells The Daily Beast. The married mother of two—an accomplished singer/actress in her own right—is in the midst of a furor over last week’s news that Saldana will play Nina.

The controversy hit a high note, with many crying foul over what some consider a dubious casting choice for the film. There’s even an online petition demanding that Saldana, who has yet to comment, be replaced by an actress “who actually looks like Nina Simone.”

With writing and directing duties going to Will & Grace producer and rumored Jodie Foster gal pal Cynthia Mort, the film, which was first announced in 2005 with Blige attached, is based on the life rights of Cliff Henderson, the openly gay personal assistant to Nina Simone in her final years.

Casting aside, Kelly is strong in her convictions. Since Nina Simone did compose much of her most pivotal music, the estate maintains control over its usage. Mort, who Kelly says she only communicated with once, may have difficulty getting rights and clearances for the songs.

“As long as this script is based on a lie, anything that comes through me will not be approved,” Kelly promises. “I cannot condone a lie. I don’t live my life as a lie. And the truth is stranger than fiction.” 

Usually I don't care about "controversies" like this but Nina Simone happens to have been a favorite singer of mine. I had a viscerally negative reaction to the idea of Saldana playing Simone. With any movie there has to be some sort of ability to suspend belief. Most movies are not documentaries. People who don't necessarily look exactly like the role can nonetheless turn in pretty good performances. But there are limits to this.

• If I am casting for Queen Elizabeth chances are I don't want a man of any color.
• If I am casting for Shaka Zulu I probably don't want a white man or a woman of any color.
• If I am casting for Admiral Yamamoto at the very least I will likely be looking for a man of East Asian, preferably Japanese descent.

Now there are exceptions. Sometimes a particular actor is just so skilled that the director or producer might ignore their race or even gender and rewrite the part or even more brazenly leave the part as written and have the actor play a gender and race that is obviously not their own. That's all up to the creative impulse and whether the creators feel that the change can be sold to an audience. Money is the name of the game and you want someone who works for the story AND who can put bottoms in theater seats.

I really don't think that Zoe Saldana looks anything like Nina Simone or can be made to look like her. Nina Simone was a Black American from the South who had what can be described as distinctive looks with very strong West African features. There was nothing that was remotely biracial looking about Nina Simone. She was not mixed, biracial, multiracial, omniracial or anything like that. She was BLACK. Just in case people didn't realize that she wrote more than a few songs about it. To Be Young, Gifted and Black, Four Women, and Mississippi God*** among others let you know who she was and where she was coming from.

Zoe Saldana is an Afro-Latina with more aquiline features and a totally different look and skin tone. My understanding is that she does indeed identify as Black. It is very sensitive to write about skin tone. I don't think that there should be a paper bag test of blackness. I believe in Pan-Africanism and ultimately that all men and women are brothers and sisters. But I don't think it's correct to take a woman who looked like she had unmixed descent from West Africa and have her depicted by a woman who looks like Saldana. If someone were to do a movie depicting the lives of Lena Horne or Dorothy Dandridge I would not be happy if Mo'Nique or Whoopi Goldberg were playing the lead. All black people do not look alike. There are limits to believability and Saldana playing Simone crosses those limits for me. 

The elephant in the room of course is the issue that Saldana is a popular actress and it may be easier to sell a Nina Simone biopic to a white mainstream audience because of Saldana's looks, popularity and skin tone. Also given the dearth of lead roles for dark skin African American actresses it seems more than a bit unfair that a role that seems tailor made for a Viola Davis or a Rutina Wesley should be given to a Saldana.

Of course this is all subjective. If this film is made Saldana may do a bang-up job. Maybe I am full of it.

What's your take? 

Much ado about nothing?

Would a black director/writer have made the same call?

Does/should skin tone or race matter in casting?

Music Reviews-Andre Williams, The Watts Prophets, Melanie, AC/DC: Powerage, Isaac Hayes: Hot Buttered Soul

Andre "Mr. Rhythm" Williams is an Alabama born and formerly Detroit based singer, frontman, producer and songwriter who worked in the fields of blues, doo-wop, rock-n-roll, R&B, soul, country, punk rock, and hard rock. Williams has worked with or written for a who's who of rock-n-roll and R&B including but not limited to The Contours, Ike and Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, The Chi-Lites, Mary Wells, Edwin Starr, The Five Du-Tones, The Dirt-Bombs, Jon Spencer, The Sadies and Parliament-Funkadelic. He is also one of the dirtiest old men alive. Imagine if Redd Foxx (who was one of Williams' friends) had decided to be a musician instead of a comedian. I mean you have to be careful listening to Andre Williams' music because it might give you some hopelessly depraved ideas about what to do with certain body parts. Williams knows what goes where and why and he will gleefully tell you all about it too. "Jailbait" is something that R.Kelly should be forced to listen to.

For the most part, especially in his older music, Williams accomplished some sleaze by judicious use of metaphors and double entendres but in recent years with various punk-blues or alt-country bands he has been much more direct. I have a mixed feeling about some of his later stuff. The guitars tend to be much louder and more distorted. There's much more use of profanity. His modern bands aren't quite as flexible in their musical approach. But songs like "Everybody Knew" (which has VERY EXPLICIT ADULT ONLY language-I am really not kidding about this) or "Let Me Put It in" are really over the top. They're almost funny. YMMV. Those are the hardest of hard blues/rock. The raunch on "Let me Put It In" matches or exceeds anything ever done by The Rolling Stones or Guns N' Roses or any modern rapper. You may find Williams' later music "offensive", "profane" and any other negative characterization you care to use.  I wouldn't disagree. I do generally find his older music like "Is It True" and "Cadillac Jack"  to be more fun. At the very least you can listen to those songs with children or female relatives in the house. So there's that. "Pass the Biscuits Please!" is funny, clean and true to life.

Like James Brown, Williams is not a great singer although unlike Brown he has an extremely resonant and expressive baritone voice. So Williams often talks or raps over his music as much as he sings over it. If you want to start with his older stuff look for his work on Fortune Records or Chess Records. Chess Records needs no introduction of course but Fortune Records was the low-rent brother to Motown Records in Detroit. The recording studio at Fortune was a dirt floor garage. Production quality was often hit or miss (more miss) but they did have a few wild rock-n-roll performers, of whom Williams was the most infamous. Being small they could and did take more chances than Motown, whose goal from the start was to reach the mainstream.
Williams 90's update of the classic Dominoes doo-wop song The Bells is more than worthwhile. I also like his older cuts I wanna know why , Going Down to Tijuana, Bacon Fat, Greasy Chicken, Pulling Time, and Sweet Little Pussycat. Looking down at you looking up at me is a modern sleazy tune but it manages to stay just this side of explicitness. I really like the frantic hurried rhythms used here.

Williams is one of the last living links to the earliest days of rock-n-roll and has tons of interesting and harrowing stories to tell about his experiences. He's never really been at the top but he has definitely been down and out. Honestly if you saw him on the street you might either give him a few bucks because he looks desperate (he HAS been homeless in the past) or step out of his way because he looks desperate. If you are interested, on Hulu and elsewhere you can find the film "Agile, Mobile and Hostile". This 90 minute documentary from 2008 looks at a day in Williams' life and his past glories and failures. It's probably only worthwhile if you are a serious Williams fan but I mention it here just in case you want to know more.



The Watts Prophets

It is sometimes difficult to discover who exactly was the first to come up with something in the creative world. Copyright aside, people always share, steal and are influenced by others. In this post alone Andre Williams and Isaac Hayes could be said to have inspired rap as they were doing spoken word and rap in some form long before the late seventies. You could go back to Jamaican toasts, southern dozens, and even Louis Jordan to look for other arguable antecedents to what is today known as rap.

One of those antecedents though certainly would have to be The Watts Prophets, who in the late sixties and early seventies, released two albums, Rapping Black in a White World and On the Streets. These albums combined a militant black nationalism with social realism. They had rap, chants, spoken words and poetry. The music was often raw, angry and harsh but it also drew deep from blues, jazz, gospel and soul influences. There was always a hint of love peeking out through the rage. Although they were never that commercially successful I consider much of their work to be a more faithful updating of blues tradition than anything that say anyone from Britain ever released. Their music sought to illuminate and educate and inspire as much, or really more than it tried to entertain anyone.

As mentioned much of their music at this time was extremely profane which likely was one reason that they didn't get as much success as some other groups. It was a different time. Standards were different. I look back at this music as a necessary purging of some very bad feelings that black people had been forced to bottle up for centuries. I was able to pick up both of their albums in a used record store a few years back. If you can find them and you are into this sort of music definitely buy the albums. They have since been re-released on one CD. The Watts Prophets were generally a core trio (Otis O'Soloman, Anthony Hamilton, Richard Dedaux) with sometime member Dee Dee McNeil (a musician and songwriter who had worked for Motown) often providing the female vocals. I believe that's her on "Black in a White World", which is probably my favorite Watts Prophets' composition. As this group originally grew out of a local writers' workshop, exact membership at a given time was somewhat fluid.

Some of their music is below. It is as detailed, explicit. I probably wouldn't listen to some of this at work unless you have headphones or failing that, bosses, co-workers and customers who share your musical tastes, ideas about profanity and political views.
What is a Man?  Black in a White World   What is it Sisters Everybody Watches
The Days The Hours  The Prostitute   Clowns All Around  Tenements and The Master



Melanie

I don't know if Melanie was the first Caucasian-American folk singer to come up with the idea of using an African-American choir for a song she wrote. I would guess not. But for my money she did it best. Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) is a beautiful song. It is a collaboration with The Edwin Hawkins Singers. I really like the contrast between the higher pitched more nasally vocals of Melanie and the haunting gospel vocals of the choir. Melanie wrote the song after performing at Woodstock. She initially had a bit of a struggle to convince Edwin Hawkins that performing a secular song was a good idea. But as the sound is about peace, love, and brotherhood, Hawkins and his choir were convinced. The song was recorded live in one take. The rest as they say is history. I never would have known of Melanie were it not for The Edwin Hawkins Singers. If that were all Melanie had ever done, I would still find her worthy of mention just because that song is so wonderful. But she had a lot of other musical interests as well. As she was something of a flower child these songs tended to be about standing up for what was right and resisting corruption. (Look What They Done to My Song Ma, Peace Will Come (According to Plan, The Nickel Song ) But she also wrote or sang songs with more personal or earthier interests (Brand New Key, Psychotherapy,  Do You Believe) And how can you resist anyone who is a Winnie the Pooh fan? Check out her song Christopher Robin.






Powerage
by AC/DC

In another life when I was a fledgling financial analyst my then boss was a huge AC/DC fan. I had never heard of the band but upon listening became fascinated by the combination of sped up Chuck Berry and Jimmy Reed riffs, lead singer's Bon Scott's strangled Howling Wolf meets Little Richard voice and lyrics that were often naughty but rarely explicit. Unlike some other rock bands AC/DC often had a bit of syncopation and bounce to their sound. It wasn't just plodding music.

This album saw the introduction of a new bassist and perhaps not coincidentally a different production approach, one with a lot more clarity and actual audible bass. It didn't quite have the hits of later albums but I do think the album is a bit underrated.
The songwriting is a bit more mature this time around although to be honest mature songwriting is usually not what you're looking for in an AC/DC album. Angus and Malcolm play their riffs. Bon screams and howls into the microphone. The rhythm section furiously bashes away. And Angus does a bluesy solo, often while doing a Chuck Berry duckwalk or having a spasm on the floor. That's their formula. It worked. That is it worked until unfortunately Bon died and the band had to regroup with a different singer, Brian Johnson. I like Johnson's work but Bon still remains a favorite. There's nothing here that I would call funk but "Gone Shootin" certainly grooves and makes what sounds like at least a nod towards soul and funk while also staying faithful to Angus's most obvious influence, Chuck Berry.

The entire album is a textbook demonstration of how to make two guitars mesh together but "Gone Shootin" does that the best in my unmusical opinion. "Down Payment Blues" was one of the first AC/DC songs that I was able to work out on guitar. It's easy but fun and I like the lyrics. If you've ever found yourself a bit light on cash you might be able to appreciate the humor and desperation in the song. I also like the tom-tom breakdown. The lyrics to "What's Next to the Moon" are more than a bit surreal and a true example of rock-and-roll poetry.  Sin City speaks for itself. Gimme a Bullet burnishes Bon's tough guy image and Rock-n-Roll Damnation  is a lyrical and musical forerunner to "Highway to Hell".  Bon was true to who he was and rarely if ever tried affectations of other people's cadences or accents. You have to appreciate that. Well at least I do.




Hot Buttered Soul
by Isaac Hayes

Although this was not Isaac Hayes' first release as a leader for Stax Records it was the one that put him firmly and permanently on the map as a songwriter, interpreter, sex symbol and superstar. Hayes had long been a producer, session musician and writer for Stax Records and shows up on quite a few Stax hits of the sixties. With ownership transition of Stax Records and Stax's betrayal by Atlantic, the new Stax management and ownership was open to new ideas-hopefully ideas that would earn lots of money. And Hayes had evidently decided that the time was right for him to move into the spotlight. His first release flopped badly but undeterred Hayes came back for a second try, insisting on total creative control. The result was Hot Buttered Soul, an album which both anticipated later watered down soul artists who spent 30 minutes moaning orgasmically over "beats" and also made discerning listeners yearn for the real thing on display here.

Hayes' and team's production on this release was simultaneously sparse and quite busy. Female choruses merge with lush string sections and horns almost seamlessly. Often times a piano can get drowned out by loud electric guitars but here everything is in balance. There's just the right touch of what seems like room reverb on the drums with maybe a hint of studio trickery. And the bass booms and rolls without either dominating the sound or getting lost in the mix. Compared to "modern mixes", say anything recorded after 1990 or so, the mix is clean and loud but not overwhelmingly so. It's rare that you would want to turn this down.  It sounds like everything was recorded live in one session-even though that probably wasn't the case. And finally of course there's the true lead instrument here, Hayes' bass voice. Much like Andre Williams, Hayes had a singular deep resonant singing voice the likes of which I don't hear in much of today's popular R&B music. Of course I hardly listen to any of today's popular R&B music if I can help it so feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

Hayes was as much of an interpreter as he was a songwriter.  This album only had four songs. Only one of them was written by Hayes but he makes them all his own. None of them are less than five minutes long. So there are some extended grooves. Hayes takes his time getting to the point but you will likely enjoy the ride all the same. On his take on the country tune "By The Time I get to Phoenix", Hayes speaks, preaches and raps as much as he sings. Before he starts singing you may well be crying for the pain he's going through. This is just really good stuff in my opinion. Growing up more than a few people in my extended family had this album and considered it proof of Hayes' musical genius. I have no qualifications to say that but I will say this is one of my favorite Isaac Hayes albums. This is the kind of music one listens to in a basement party with blue lights and a little incense or something else burning.  Three of the four songs are about infidelity and loss of love. It's really updated blues. Hayes was backed musically by the revamped Bar-Kays, back from their near deaths in the plane crash that took the life of Otis Redding.

Younger folks will likely recognize "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" from its sampling by Public Enemy in "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos". I like how the beat turns around in the song. As mentioned Hayes made a serious and mostly permanent break from the 3 minute soul song here. Some people like to intimate that this was influenced by rock musicians. I kind of doubt that because there were TONS of contemporaneous similar jazz and funk musicians starting to expand the realm of what was possible. Hayes and his band were also much tighter than any rock band performing, then or now.  Walk on By is his take on a Burt Bacharach song while  One Woman again speaks of a man struggling with infidelity, only this time it's the man himself who is untrue.

Fear Cuts Deeper Than Swords-A Game of Thrones

If you've been around the blog for a while you know that I am an A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones fanatic.
This post's title is a mantra which Arya Stark was taught by her fencing instructor Syrio Forel. Unfortunately she has reason to take it to heart and live by it as she must endure experiences which might scar a grown man, let alone a nine year old girl. But things are what they are. I really like the phrase "Fear cuts deeper than swords" because it has a meaning which definitely rings true in my life. I bet at least once it may have been true in yours as well.

The Storyteller recently did a great post about fear being used by both sides to influence the upcoming election. Fear is a useful emotion. It tells us that we don't know what's going to happen next and we have to be careful. It may sharpen our senses and make us very alert to our surroundings and events taking place therein. If you happen to work with mobsters or you are followed by hoodlums or you are forced to consider heart surgery or you are stopped in the "wrong neighborhood" by a police officer with a bad attitude or you are trapped on a sinking ship that is surrounded by sharks then fear is a completely rational response. Fear in those situations can help keep you and yours alive. For most of us that's more important than anything else. Someone who claims to be fearless is usually someone who is lying through his teeth, doesn't have much relevant information about the situation he's in, or no longer cares if he lives or dies. So in that aspect a little fear can bring much needed rationality and clarity to a situation. We all have fear. We all need fear. Believe that.

But on the other hand, fear has a very negative side as well. Fear pops up in situations that aren't life and death. Fear can arise when you think about doing something out of your comfort zone that you haven't done before. Fear can arise when you have to stand up to a boss and tell that person that they are full of it and if they don't like what you said that's too freaking bad. Fear can arise when you want to make that move on someone you've had your eye on for a while but you immediately start to think of all of the reasons why s/he wouldn't give you the time of day. Fear also has some negative physical impacts. Being in continual fight-or-flight mode can contribute to such problems as hypertension and sleep deprivation, not to mention heart disease and other ailments. And a fearful person may lash out at other people for no good reason, even those or especially those that remind them of themselves. Ultimately if you constantly live in fear of doing new things, of taking chances or risks, of growing up, of confronting problems or bad people in your life, you end up in a state of paralysis, unable to move forward and mature. You can become stagnant and trapped in rationalizations of your own failings. You may congratulate yourself for avoiding the risks of talking action but on the other hand you never get to enjoy the rewards of growth. You may watch with envy and confusion as other people move past you by whatever standard has meaning to you.

This can be quite painful for some people's egos of course so rather than examine and confront the reasons why they are afraid they will often pretend that the rewards of change and growth aren't really what they are cracked up to be. They tell themselves that they could have chosen to be more successful but they made a deliberate decision not to do so. Some folks even go further and suggest that this somehow makes them a better, more moral person, than the individual who dealt with their fears and worries and went ahead to take chances. If you happen to know people like this it can be both sad and infuriating at the same time because they've convinced themselves not only that deliberately throwing away their full human potential is a practical thing to do but also that it's a good thing to do and they are better than you for doing so. In the worst cases you have someone who is smugly and perversely proud to have made nothing of his life or natural talents. That indeed does wound the person deeper than a physical attack would have done. It's often extremely difficult for someone to come back from a fear that has consumed their self-worth. That sort of damage can take years to repair.

It is of course much easier to surmount your fears if you have a supportive family and/or especially a significant other or if you've been trained from birth to acknowledge your fears but proceed with your plans and dreams anyway. The other method in which some people confront their fears and to paraphrase George Clinton, "rise above it all or drown in their own s***" , is to be forced into a position in which there is literally no choice but to take action. There is a phrase that a hero isn't anything but a coward that got cornered. There is something to that. Whether it's the fictional Batman descending into a cave to deal with his fears of bats and darkness or the very real parents who at some point place their child in the deep end of the pool and urge him to swim or tell the bullied child that if he doesn't go back and confront the bully he'll have a worse problem at home, sometimes a shock to the system can shake things up. The person then realizes that the fear that he had was preventing him from going to the next level of accomplishment. Fear is just a message that you are sending to yourself. There is no shame in fear. There is shame in letting fears define or limit you. Winter is coming for us all whether we like it or not. We do ourselves or our loved ones no favors by not living life to its fullest.

Bran Stark: Can a man still be brave when he is afraid?

Ned Stark: That is the only time a man can be brave.

Questions:

How have you overcome fears in your life?

What have your fears taught you about yourself?

Has fear ever helped you in a bad situation?