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Thoughts on 12 Years a Slave

Went to see Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave the other day.  Before seeing it, I posted this on social media:

About to see 12 years a slave, which is this movie fan's equivalent of "eating your vegetables". It will no doubt be "good for me" and I might even "enjoy" it. But I'm dubious and generally off-put by the need to do it.

There was a decent amount of discussion on the post.  With some folks being of the "nah, I'm not seeing it" opinion and others saying it was a film that needed to be seen.

Here's my executive summary:

• The movie is excellent, it is a work of art of a very high order.
• If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't see it.  I'm not of the opinion that anyone needs to see this film specifically.

This is the first film of McQueen's that I've seen.  He is a true auteur… he tells a powerful story.  The performances in the film are top notch.  [film geekery] There are some badass long takes, great sound design and other such stuff going on in the film. [end film geekery]

To talk about why I wouldn't see it again, I must first say that I had no plans to see it at all.  It was nothing specific to 12 Years..., I just don't like paying money to feel sad.  Here is a select list of "important" films I've never seen, and have no particular plans to see:

• Schindler's List
• Precious
• The Act of Killing
• The Onion Field
• The Impossible

I'm also not inclined to spend money on any number of Magic and/or Numinous Negro films, such as:

• Shawshank Redemption
• The Green Mile
• The Legend of Bagger Vance
• The Blind Side
• etc.

Not criticizing any of those "important" films, they're just not usually my bag.  There is an implicit critique of the Magic Negro stuff… but that is fodder for a different post ;-)

So, why did I need to see 12 Years?  I made a commitment to see it because a respected actor friend of mine said the film had "changed cinema" and implored me to see it so that we could discuss/argue about it at a later date.  I am a man of my word, if nothing else :-)

As I said above, it is an excellent film.  But in my assessment, it hasn't done anything to foster a more meaningful understanding of slavery than did the TV miniseries Roots 30+ years ago.  I want to stress here that to say 12 Years is as good as Roots in that regard is very high praise in my book.

I've been thinking about what's behind the impulse to believe this or that film "needs to be seen".  As it relates to the subject matter covered by 12 Years A Slave, it doesn't take much insight to see that the core sentiment that's really being expressed is that:

  slavery and its impact need to be truly understood by all Americans

And, seeing films such as 12 Years a slave may be useful steps towards that ultimate goal.    

I wholeheartedly agree that slavery and its impact need to be truly understood, but I'd set up a different syllabus for people interested in a journey towards that understanding.

Cliff's "Journey towards understanding" syllabus

History

• Read:  From Slavery to Freedom (9th Edition), by John Hope Franklin & Evelyn Higginbotham
• Read:  Black Reconstruction, by W.E.B. DuBois
• Watch:  Africans in America: America's Journey though Slavery
• Watch:  Eyes on the prize: America's Civil Rights Movement

Today

• Read: Two Nations: Black and White, Saparate, Hostile, Unequal, by Andrew Hacker
• Read: Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools, by Jonathan Kozol
• Read: Racism without racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

I know others might have a different syllabus in mind and I'd welcome those comments.

Dramatizations such as 12 Years, Roots, or what-have-you, while powerful, and possibly useful as a step towards greater understanding, are at their heart entertainments.  As substantive as they might want to be, they are limited by the primary goals of entertaining.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm supremely uninterested in engaging substantively with anyone who hasn't done at least 50% of the homework I enumerate above (or something similar).  In the realm of substance, all seeing 12 Years might do is allow a viewer to say very emphatically and with heartfelt emotion, that slavery sucked.  To which my reply would be: "Why yes.  Yes it did."

Classic Material: Michael Jackson - P.Y.T

P.Y.T. is my favorite Michael Jackson song.  You should pause for a moment to consider what I just said...  Yup, this is my favorite.  I'd expect any reader to accept, a priori, that this is an awesome song... but why is it my favorite among a looooong list of awesome MJ songs?  We'll get to that.

First, though, we need to talk about the tiger.  In addition to its numerous distinctions, Thriller has the honor of being the best non-Ohio-Players gatefold cover ever.  That white suit?  The casual-yet-oh-so-fly Gordon Gartrel lookin' black shirt?  A baby tiger?!? In all of our combined lives and efforts, it's highly unlikely that we'd approach that level of fly...

Musically, why is it my favorite?

• great contrast between the airy synth pads of the intro and the boogie of the main song
• great bass line, with the main part of the phrase being stolen from another artist[1], but in the best way.
• great music arrangment, with an artful layering and interweaving of the various elements over the course of the song.  Listen to the rhythm piano that's present only in the first verse as the instrumentation builds.  Listen for the bongos over the course of the song. Wow.  Produced by Quincy Jones, so, duh.
• great vocal arrangement. quick... how many pop songs can you name where there are key changes in the backing vocals?  The chipmunk backing vocals in the final few bars?!? Bananas.
• I'm not even going to talk about the breakdowns, we'd be here all day...

As with most classic material though, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  I remember being at a Four Barrel coffee in San Francisco's Mission District a while back.  Man, this place was hipster!  But the head Barista (who gets the honor of selecting tunes during the shift, I believe) was playing Thriller.  Yo, every toe in that place was tappin' and every head was bobbin'.  If there'd been one other black person besides me, a dance party might have even broken out.

Head Barista at Four Barrel gets it poppin' with P.Y.T.

So yeah, P.Y.T is my favorite MJ tune.  However, I also like the demo version of the song, which is similar only in title to the album version.  Here's the U-Tern Edit.  I also like what Kanye did with the chipmunk vocals on his track Good Life, which is notable for being the only track on which T-Pain is tolerable to my ears.

Footnotes

1 - PYT's bassline during the verses before the bridge is lifted almost directly from Carl Carlton's She's a Bad Mama Jama (She's built, She's Stacked), which was released in 1981, just a year before Thriller.  The truth of the matter is that every artist "steals".. being influenced by other artists, and sometimes appropriating these influences. One wonders if there might be a Robin Thicke/Pharrell style controversy around PYT were it to be released today.

Screw Homicide, let's talk about Heart Disease!

Actually, what I have to say is (hopefully) more nuanced and useful than my headline implies :-)

This started out as a Facebook post as I wanted to respond to the voices I saw filling up my screen in reaction to the tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.

Humans are hardwired to try to explain things, and when tragedies such as this occur, the impulse kicks into overdrive.  It's a club I wish I didn't belong to, but as someone who's lost a young relative to violent crime, I *can* imagine what they're going through in Newtown, and my thoughts are with them in ways that would take too long to express in a FB or Blog post.  So, where I go to try to "make sense" of things after events like this is the aggregate data.  Some facts:

• of the 15 major causes of death that the CDC tracks, Homicide ranks 15th (with about 16,000 homicides in 2009)... and this level has held steady for about the last decade

• of Homicides, "mass homicide" deaths have averaged about 150, also holding steady for the last decade

• Heart disease, the #1 cause of death, took about 600,000 lives in 2009, two orders of magnitude greater than homicide, 3 orders of magnitude greater than mass homicide

Ok, so what?  Well, I guess this info, particularly the trend data, helps stop me from going down the road of "things are getting worse" thinking.  This is not say that "things are just fine".  My personal opinion is that guns are too easy to get. ( Heart disease was definitely not the top cause of mortality for young men in Chicago this past summer. )  We should have a debate on Gun Control, or "Gun Rights", if you prefer.  But I'm dubious that anything short of UK Style restrictions would have much impact on homicide rates.  Again, that's not say we shouldn't consider that, but it's politically untenable.

And perhaps, more importantly, looking at the aggregate data, I think it's awesome that we can move forward on less contentious issues, such as helping our kids be more active and eat more healthily, and really make a difference as it relates to our "top killers".

Sources:

Crime Statistics since 1960: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

CDC Mortality data for 2009 (table on page 5): http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf

Information of "Mass Homicide" Rates: http://www.npr.org/2012/12/14/167287373/many-mass-killers-have-had-chronic-depression

Nashville Record Stores

Nashville... "Music City"... stands to reason that the music shopping would be good, and Nashville did not disappoint.

Ernest Tubb's 

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a country music expert (which is not to say that I'm not a fan, but aside from some alt-country stuff like Robbie Fulks and Jeff Tweedy, I haven't moved much beyond the Dixie Chicks in terms of my depth of knowledge about the genre)

The great thing about not knowin' shit is that you can't go wrong!  Thusly, I picked up a "grab bag" to advance my study in the ways of Country Western :-)

The friendly clerks chatted me up about being from Chicago ("there's been a lotta' y'all down here recently...") and referred to my laptop bag as a "satchel"... it was all I could do not to hug them.

Copped (via the grab bag):

• Comedy for the Road feat. Red Sovine, Johnny Bond, Ben Colder, and Others (CD)
• Live Ones: Classic Country Radio Hits (CD) - Compilation featuring tunesfrom the likes of The Gatlin Brothers, Merle Haggard, and Willie Nelson
• Men in Bluegrass (CD)
• Loretta Lynn - Making More Memories (Cassette - that's right, we keeps it real!)

 Third Man Records

The headquarters of the Jack White's (as in, the White Stripes) record label, with a super-tiny, almost museum gift-shop-like retail annex.  Even though it was tiny, it was a blast.  All of the merchandise was Jack White/Third Man related, but was made with such care and attention to detail that it was great just window shopping.  And the clerk reminded me of a taller, cuter, Meg White, seriously.

Copped

• The White Stripes - Elephant (CD)
• The White Stripes - Icky Thump (CD)

Grimey's New and Pre-Loved Music

"best for last" is perhaps a bit trite, but Grimey's most definitely deserves its rep as one of the best stores in the Region.  If you believe Rolling Stone, it's one of the best shops in the country.  A broad, deep and well curated selection... and, as is a hallmark of all the best shops, I had to force myself to leave.

Copped:

• RZA - The Man with the Iron Fists Soundtrack (CD)
• RZA - The Man with the Iron Fists Score (CD)
• Sliver Convention - Save Me  (Vinyl)

I'll keep the musicology brief... but even if one is steeped in different traditions (for me, it would be the lineage of blues to R&B and its offshoots, hip-hop, disco, what have you...) it's undeniable that in the delta lies the beating heart of what we know today as American Popular music.  Game recognize game.

Reason #3 Why Stevie Wonder is a Musical Genius

Reason #3 - If enough people believe it's true, it must be!

A quick word of background:  The idea of this series of blog posts comes from a good friend who was compiling a list of "Musical Geniuses of the 20th Century" and sought my input.  When I volunteered that, in my opinion, Stevie's presence on the list was mandatory, she was skeptical.  I know, right?!?  She's otherwise a nice, sane, well-educated person ;-) Since my friend clearly didn't take me at my word, I figured I'd give a brief catalog of 3rd party sources that buttress my opinion on the matter.  So, who believes Stevie is a genius?

Allmusic Guide - The comprehensive online music database and blog (and possessor of *millions* of CDs at their Michigan headquarters) says that Stevie is:

"…a much-beloved American icon and an indisputable genius

 not only of R&B but popular music in general"

NPR, who concluded their "NPR 100" series with Stevie's album Talking Book.  The objective of the NPR 100 is no less than to present the stories behind 

"100 of the most important American musical works of the 20th century, across all styles and genres"

The Guardian, the London newspaper, who have the following to say about Stevie's album Songs in the Key of Life

"This influenced virtually every modern soul and R&B singer… No other R&B artist has sung about the quandaries of human existence with quite the same grace."

Rolling Stone Magazine , the notoriously Rock-centric publication, who rank 4 of Stevie's albums among their "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".  The albums:

• Innervisions
• The Music of My Mind
• Songs in the Key of Life
• Talking Book

By way of reference, these are the Artists with the most albums making Rolling Stone's List

• Bob Dylan - 10
• The Beatles - 10
• The Rolling Stones - 8
• The Who - 7

Other Artists, according to one source, Stevie has written 131 songs for artists such as:

• Luciano Pavarotti
• Julio Iglesias
• Neil Diamond
• The Beach Boys
• Quincy Jones
• James Taylor
• Jeff Beck
• Marvin Gaye
• Diana Ross
• and many, many others

Music Nerd General Consensus, my proof?  The excellent 33 1/3 Book series has a volume on Songs in the Key of Life (volume 42, in case you're curious)

I'm only an expert in my own mind, but it bears repeating that I think he's a genius too.

< Reason #2 | Reason #4 >  

Stockholm Hearts Detroit (even if it thinks it's Chicago)

I had the good fortune to be in Stockholm last summer. Went out for work.

After I finished my work out there, I spent the weekend checking out some Museums and Record Stores.

I visited this Record Store called Pet Sounds. After being greeted in Swedish, and sheepishly admitting that I didn't speak the language. I had a chat with the record store clerk, who amiably switched to English for me.

He asks me where in the States I'm from, I say Chicago... the following dialogue ensues:

Clerk: "I love Juan Atkins!"

Me: (smiling) "I love him too, but he's from Detroit."

Clerk: "Oh! Right! Moodymann is awesome!"

Me: (smiling more) "I know, he's great. He's from Detroit too!"

(I'm glad he didn't mention Theo Parrish or it would've gotten really confusing, lol! I tick off the names of few chicago folks until I mention Marshall Jefferson and his eyes finally light up.)

Clerk: "Marshall Jefferson, Ten City! Great Stuff!"

It's great to see how much love Detroit gets, even when it's misplaced by a hundred miles or so :-)