OPEN: fayemi shakur in Conversation with Bohemian B-Boy and Parisian Expat Miles Marshall Lewis

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Miles Marshall Lewis has written for numerous major publications, including The Believer and Wax Poetics. He edited the literary journal, Bronx Biannual, and has published three books, including There’s a Riot Goin’ On, a book about the life and times of Sly and the Family Stone. He’s a blogger and a traveler. He’s a lot of things. But he also writes really good erotica and not the “traditional” kind.  ”Like bad poetry, erotica can get cliché and predictable”, Miles explains. Here Miles gets OPEN and shares his perspectives on the artform, sexuality and marriage, sex in Paris, and why when it comes to erotica, class over crass is the best practice.

 

How did your interest in erotica come about and what drew you to it? Who are some of the writers who first inspired you and how would you describe your erotic writing style?

I started reading erotica early in high school, before I even got laid the first time. There was a guy, Michael Avallone, who wrote spy books using a lot of different pseudonyms. His most popular character was a James Bond knockoff named Nick Carter. Avallone wrote erotica in the late ’60s as Troy Conway, at least 30 trashy novels like Just a Silly Millimeter Longer, The Billion Dollar Snatch and A Stiff Proposition.They were all about this really hung spy, Rod Damon a.k.a. the Coxeman. He was born with priapism, which meant he never lost his erections. His entire sex life was like Viagra to the nth degree. Insatiable nymphos running through the books were always pleasantly surprised. The Coxeman books taught me a lot of tricks that mostly didn’t work, but it was my only real exposure until the black erotica anthology, Brown Sugar.

In 2003 erotica editor Carol Taylor invited me to submit something for Brown Sugar 3: When Opposites Attract. I had already written “Diva Moves” just for myself, based on a pathological liar, a mythomaniac nymphomaniac, I’d messed around with, a sister from Miami. Carol published it, and reached out to me again two years later when she put together Wanderlust: Erotic Travel Tales. I was living in Paris then, and I gave her “Irrésistible,” about a DJ caught between two study abroad students in Spain and France. Ruthie’s Club folded, but it was a site publishing erotica that got reprinted a lot in Susie Bright’s Best American Erotica books. They published “Threesomes,” my ménage à trois story. I’ve described my writing style as “neurotica,” because my lead characters seem to be on the neurotic side. Like bad poetry, erotica can get cliché and predictable. For me, the easiest way out of that box is to make my protagonists a little bugged out.

Since you have written in depth about Sly and the Family Stone, how would you describe the relationship between psychedelic funk music and sexuality and love? Do you think the ’70s were more open than the times are now in American society?

Sex has always been a big motivating force with musicians. They’re talented and they love music, sure, but chasing fame has a lot to do with unlimited wealth and unlimited sex. Holed up in a Beverly Hills mansion in 1971, Sly Stone allegedly had orgies going on with Scarface mounds of cocaine. He would stay up for days at a time recording this dark, funky masterpiece record, There’s a Riot Goin’ On, in-between all the sex and drugs he could handle. Sly and the Family Stone practically started psychedelic soul: distorted electric rhythm guitars, backward solos and stuff. They played the Woodstock festival in 1969, with hippies smoking weed and dancing naked in the mud. The sexual revolution and free love were huge then, the Pill was new and all that.

Were the ’70s more open than America is now? That’s hard to say. If you judge by Plato’s Retreat swingers’ clubs, horny adult board games like Bumps and Grinds, the Playboy Clubs (I went to one in New Jersey when I was 8 years old, by the way), then I guess so. I remember too all the men’s skin magazines—like Chic, Oui and Players—that have gone out of business, and seedy Times Square’s XXX movies. The Internet changed everything on so many levels. Free porn in the privacy of your own bedroom is always a Google search away, which automatically gets rid of paying for Cheri magazine or Debbie Does Dallas in a sticky movie theater. With gay marriage getting legislated and Obama getting rid of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” maybe America’s more open now than it was then. Sex and the City was a lot more randy than Love, American Style. Webcam girls are the new phone-sex girls.

What did you gain from your experiences living in Paris? What differences did you notice about French vs. American perspectives related to sexuality and how is sexuality represented in French pop culture, media and society? Would you say Parisians are more or less conservative than we are in the States?

I just got back from Paris last summer after living in France seven years. I met my wife and got married there, our boys were born in the 14th arrondissement. I love Paris. I learned a lot about language, food and Black culture around the world. The French U.S. Embassy sent me to speak at colleges in Algeria, the British Film Institute put me up in London to talk at their Tupac retrospective. I spoke with Terence Trent D’Arby over in Milan for The Believer magazine. My wife and I went to Amsterdam, the French Alps, Marais Poitevin (the “green Venice”) and Deauville (the “Parisian Riviera”) on vacations. While I was there, I wrote a column called “Paris Noir” for PopMatters where I talked about a lot of it. Then blogging took off and I launched Furthermucker, talking about being a 21st century expat in Paris. It’s different. Hemingway and Baldwin didn’t have Tumblrs.

Sexuality in Paris is a lot more open in advertising. Sexy lingerie posters for Aubade are plastered everywhere. Nudity is shown on television with no problems, the French seem less embarrassed by the naked body. Women sunbathe nude in the summertime at Paris-Plages, where the French set up sandy beaches and palm trees at the Seine river in July. The whole thing with Paris and the French is class over crass. Elegance and culture and cosmopolitanism is what they’re all about, and it spills into their sexuality. There are hundreds of legal sex clubs in Paris. Burlesque shows are still popular, I saw a Dita Von Teese performance over there.

The French seem to be more open than Americans, but I’m a native New Yorker. I would say New York City and the L.A. area are less like the rest of the U.S. than other states. New Yorkers are some of the freakiest, horniest, experimental and sexually open people I’ve met. Parisians can be conservative too, in ways that New Yorkers are not. Anything goes here. The French are prim sometimes. The flipside of trying to be so classy is getting ashamed real fast, like the Japanese cliché of losing face.

Another thing: There are nude pictures floating around of France’s former First Lady, Carla Bruni. Back in her modeling days, she dated Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton. She’s 44, she’s got albums out. I guess Michelle Obama is attractive in a Clair Huxtable kind of way, but she wasn’t posing nude. Sexuality is so open in Paris that you can Google and ogle naked pictures of the rock star First Lady, and nobody bats an eye.

In a great piece you wrote for Essence magazine a while ago called “Fighting Temptation,” you talked about what is considered crossing the line when it comes to marriage and flirting. You wrote: “My self-image was definitely tied to my ability to attract the opposite sex. Some men who feel this way just secretly cheat and refuse to face a mature change in self-identity.” Do you think it’s realistic for people to insist their partners stop flirting once they are married? What do you think of the position of some people that monogamy is unnatural? How do you personally resolve those inner conflicts?

Flirting is natural. It’s possible that certain people can’t wait to get married and be monogamous because they’re not too attractive or charming or interesting in the first place, and when they find that one love partner, they’re only too happy to dig in for dear life. People on the other side of the spectrum, who feel like their options are more wide open, make the choice to get married a little less desperately. And flirtation is gonna happen between good-looking, life-curious, sexually alive people. Beauty can be inspiring just like a great film or moving music or whatever. To wall yourself off from that just because of your wedding vows is, like, wow. Marriage isn’t jail. When it feels that way, people end up getting divorced or cheating, because your libido doesn’t really change that much. To pretend it does is sort of unnatural.

That said, love is pretty much a choice. Fireworks and magic are parts of it, of course. But to me, love means actively going out of your way not to do things that would hurt your partner’s feelings. I mean, it’s the least you could do. Whether monogamy is natural or not, loving someone means having enough self-control to stay away from doing things that hurt them.

What was the premise for your new sex and relationship column, “Common Sensual” that you are now writing for Ebony.com? “The Space Between Lovers” is one of my favorite posts so far. In what ways can space be good, not to mention healthy, in a relationship, even marriage?

Details has re-launched around three times, and in the ’90s, the magazine had a really cool sex columnist named Anka Radakovich. I wanted to tackle a sexier beat with “Common Sensual” and write my Black, male version of the fun stuff I used to read from Anka Radakovich. As far as space, everybody needs a certain amount. The best marriages and partnerships come from partners who are best friends. Best friends tend to like being around each other a lot, and when you share an apartment and a queen-size bed together, that works in your favor. But taking some space for yourself helps you keep your own identity outside of being a husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend. Who you are is what attracted you to the other person to begin with; some alone time to get your head together is the best way to maintain that.

The story you wrote for OPEN Vol. 1 entitled “Turnstile” was pretty creative. What inspired that story?

For years I had this idea about the subway turnstiles in Times Square overloading sexual energy from the pelvises of thousands of people into some unsuspecting prude. With “Turnstile,” I finally got the story out of my system. Erotica stories are more exciting to write when they stray from the “boy meets girl, boy screws girl” formula. Fictionalizing real-life sex escapades gets tiring too, for writers and readers. “Turnstile” was a lot more Twilight Zone, something that could never possibly have happened to anybody. I never knew where to go with the story after that nugget of an idea, but when I committed to getting it all down, it started to write itself.

What advice do you have for aspiring erotica writers?

Fictionalize your real-life sex escapades. Then look up from your own erogenous zone and stretch out into fantasy as your writing confidence improves. Erotica should be more seductive than pornographic. If you want to go gonzo with it, make your graphic descriptions more of a spice than the main course. Think class over crass.

Follow Miles on Tumblr and on Twitter @furthermucker

Check out his Common Sensual column on Ebony.com

Keep up with the stories we share and join our OPEN page on Facebook.

OPEN Poetry: Public/Art for people who fuck & write & color outside the lines by jessica Care moore

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Public/Art

for people who fuck & write & color outside the lines

(from the JCM film, “He Looked Like A Postcard.”)

by jessica Care moore

as featured in OPEN

 

I don’t know how to place you.
Self proclaimed “idiot servant.”
An oxymoron. genuinely brilliant.
I am turning into you.
When I am undoubtedly a

smart woman.

Not the others.
You know the ones. (I try to picture them)
you speak of with casual tongue and with more respect
for a pair of fresh leather gym shoes. Gold. Laced.

They don’t read. But I do. And, more than just books.

I smell the blue rose I placed inside a book of
Postcards. You are more distant than the last time
And I am regretful I didn’t allow you to taste
Me on my last visit.

I was trying to focus. Get some new writing done.

I want to be taken seriously, even with your electric bite
On my neck. This is about the work. Kissing you is
An European holiday. Six months long. On purpose.

Tripping over my legs today. Black Chrissy Snow.
Spilling coffee and taking too damn long before leaving

I don’t recognize myself. Strong and aggressive and
Scorpion. I’m a girl at this moment and I think it’s
Okay to be just that some/times.

When you are a single mother you pretend not to plan.
You want to seem whimsical.
Free. Unrehearsed.
Spontaneous.

Still,
I am a body of clocks.
A 3:15 dismissal reflects it’s silver numbers inside
Eye blinks/That can’t find you beneath the sweater you are
Wearing.

I want to undress you. In a business casual Friday way.
In a let’s find some corporate sponsorship and make a poster
For this genius,
kind of way.

I know I can’t be mad at you. But I will torture myself
With worry. With question marks. To myself?

Why did you get a babysitter? You know this artist is
forever in the moment of where he is. Celebrating the beauty of each
second of it.

The no plan/ plan is the best plan!

I want to discover the
Depth of your spoiled eyes that grab me when they want to
And sometimes sneak away to a different place, or
Maybe just a hint of the sun outside your large
studio loft windows.

Your mouth is a wonderland of promise. But u don’t make
Promises and never plan
to remember.
The gifted are good at not remembering. Sometimes we remember
Nothing and others days we scream aloud in protest of all the memories
and past opinions and people stuck in our head. Fighting for position.

Who am I today in white? Dissecting my voice and cutting
Custard with strawberries and kiwi. It is THE reason coffee is being brewed.
As I translate the obvious and wish to turn invisible.

with you.

Amazon woman in her clear private jet. Landing on your roof. Graffiti
on my wing.

How I long to write then
hide these stories in your mouth, so that you can find them
in between hits of your cigarette. Later. The sweet of
a black clove on your tongue.

We explore our positions in public spaces, where art belongs.
You cannot fuck your way in to someone’s soul
But you can attempt to find their humanity when
there is no place to hide. No covers. When you make love.
Outside. In the middle of the day.

Back against brick.

In hallways, bathrooms, museums, rooftops,
alleys, green rooms at concert venues, abandoned
buildings, historical landmarks, baseball fields,
elevators, on top of a table at the closed section
of a crowded restaurant. Art openings. rooftops.

Minutes before a meeting. The ring of the doorbell.
We. out-loud laughing and running.
Holding hands like 12-year old kids.

Rushing to get back the place it all began.

Let’s collaborate on a quick piece.

It’s not often we have these
Short minutes. We are artists at work. Surviving
On the occasional Detroit daylight & the sleepless night.

We are proof that public art lives.
On every inch of a poets geography.
We were raised on
soul music and political movements. We. simply.

bodies of work.

A series of haikus about love and
Homages to the revolution.

Swimming down my long right leg.
Your arms,  Shakespearean sonnets.
My mouth, a blues poem taken over by
your sweet guitar licks.

I don’t write erotica. I do erotica. This is my mantra.
as you turn me over in front of the entrance to your door.
pretend not to see neighbors shuffling for keys.

I can’t remember the last time I read or published
a poem wide open like this

In a public space.

Gonna write these poems
all over my body. (Give them all to you)

& make the public

wait.

 

jessica Care moore is a renowned poet, performer and author. As the Founder and CEO of Moore Black Press, she has released poetry by noted poets and authors Saul Williams and Asha Bandele, as well as three of her own books, The Words Don’t Fit My Mouth (1997) and The Alphabet Verses The Ghetto (2003), and God is Not an American (2009). She is the Founder of Black Women Rock! A concert, panel and workshop series dedicated to supporting and inspiring women who play rock and roll music.

OPEN Profiles: photographer and writer Sara Banevedes

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“My work, the fire in my belly, the eyes-wide-open in my sleepless nights, the longing, the healing, the just being, the capturing what is real, what is secret, what is cherished and survived and celebrated in this life.” That’s how photographer, Sara LeeAnn Banevedes describes her craft. As a photographer, she captures the intimate expressions of women with celebratory and empowering flair. As an artist who happens to hold a camera, she’s also a writer unafraid of sharing intimate emotions, at times with self-depreciating humor.  Life should be so balanced, yes?  Featured in OPEN’s premiere issue, Sara shares her thoughts on what it means to be open and the methodology behind her work.  

Through your artistic practice, what kind of things do you learn from your subjects?

I was actually my own first subject. Self-portraiture allowed me to explore my alter-egos and the female archetypes, stereotypes that I’ve always struggled with. Through my self-portrait work, as well as my artful representation of others’ on their own journeys to self-discovery, I learned that we are all inherently powerful, complex and oh-so wildly beautiful. I’ve embraced this beauty over time… years spent agonizing about my one breast smaller than the other, my new-found stray silver hairs, the roundness of a tummy that nourished and housed my only child, and the forever scars that tell a visual story of my survival. My subjects have taught me to honor the vulnerability and ferocity of myself, my fellow human beings, and the world we share.

When shooting nudes, are you able to separate your own personal sexual desire from the artistic process and how does this work for photographers who shoot erotic images?

Although the environment I stage for nude and erotica work is certainly conducive to sexual play, and creates a heightened level of sensuality which I channel to create my art, I have never been affected by my own sexual desire while photographing. This may be, in part, due to my subjects being primarily female – as I simply haven’t found myself sexually attracted to women. It’s more likely due to how detail-driven my process is, and how incredibly cerebral I am. My focus is on the light, the lines, the tone and mood… all of the individual components that make up the “big picture,” rather than my own relation or reaction to my subject.

 

What do you enjoy about erotic photography?

It’s the playful spirit and evocative nature of erotic photography that most thrill me. While I don’t create for the sole purpose of titillation, and don’t consider myself a provocateur, I’m aware that the work is intrinsically sensual, sometimes powerfully sexual. My art is about what is authentic, and unabashed, and raw, and right there in front of me. The “erotic” is merely incidental.

 

Can you share a significant experience in your life that made you feel “open”?

My mother died tragically when I was 20 years old. Five years later I gave birth to my only daughter. Both experiences were startlingly (and paradoxically) similar, as they each required more of me than I felt I was entirely capable of; shook my concept of “self” to its core; and left me raw, vulnerable and seeking clarity in my new identity. Motherless daughter, motherless mother. My work is a looking glass, mirroring these experiences of feminine transformation, celebrating the nature of being open-wide and malleable, but also resolute. I believe I honor them both by doing what I do.

 

What does being OPEN mean to you?

Being OPEN for me means swallowing life. Feeling it’s sticky sweetness break open on my tongue, and the bitterness after it’s gone. I want to taste it, really taste it…Being OPEN means that through it all, I remain a ravenous lover of life: this life that satiates me, makes my guts curdle and my soul let loose that guttural cry of real knowing, of rage, of rapture. It means exploration, expression and evolution.

Check out more of Sara’s beautiful work on tumblr.

Follow the muses on her blog, That’s What She Said He Said with co-contributor Nick Perkins.

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Michael A. Gonzales and artist Nucomme Davis-Walker get OPEN on the Life, Sex and Songs of Betty Davis

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While jazz fans cite the low-flying blast of Miles Davis’ horn riding down Electric Avenue in the 1970′s as a pivotal period in Black music, few folks are really down with the man’s greatest inspiration on the road to fusion. However, when scenester Betty Mabry swooped down on him in a silent way while shaking her bitches brew in 1966, she lit a fire under the king of cool.

Marrying dude two years later, during their time together Betty introduced him to her homeboys Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone as well as a whole other world of funk and fashion. Yet, while she had been both model and muse to the brilliant trumpeter, it wasn’t until after their divorce in 1969 that the newly named Betty Davis was able to step outside of Miles’ musical shadow and do her own thing.

Beginning her career as a songwriter, she wrote Uptown for the Chambers Brothers and later penned some funky songs that the Commodores recorded for the demo that got them signed to Motown Records. Yet, when Berry Gordy told Davis she’d have to sell her publishing as well, she took the songs back and decided to record them herself.

Coming out at a time when everyone except Tina Turner was still wearing supper club approved sequined dresses, Betty Davis opted to be as raunchy as she wanted to be. Beginning with her self-titled 1973 joint featuring bassist Larry Graham, drummer Greg Errico (both veterans of Sly & the Family Stone), as well as background singers the Pointer Sisters and Sylvester, this chick was raw like sushi.

As Betty wailed aggressively on If I’m in Luck I Might Get Picked Up and Game is my Middle Name, this North  Carolina native was aurally opening doors for the future of fem-funk. Everyone from LaBelle to Chaka Khan, Joi to Santigold owes her a little credit.

The following year, in 1974, her sophomore disc They Say I’m Different included the rousing title track as well the gutbucket anthem He Was a Big Freak. In 1975, Davis released the equally impressive Nasty Gal album, but after her last album, recorded for Island Records, was shelved in 1979, Davis walked away from the spotlight.

“The music industry can be a funny place and Betty just decided to move on,” says singer Nucomme Davis-Walker. Chilling at a coffee shop in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, the singer was born the same year Davis split from the scene. Still, as a fan of jazz since she was a teenager in Texas, the 33-year-old performer discovered Betty Davis while watching a documentary about Miles’ landmark disc Kind of Blue.

“In the documentary, Carlos Santana was talking about her,” she recalls. “My husband downloaded some of her music for me that night and when I heard it I levitated out of the bed and started shaking my hips.” It was the summer of 2008 and the song was called Lone Ranger. Laughing at the memory, Nucomme continues. “That song was sexy as hell. After that moment, I was hooked.”

Nucomme Davis-Walker

 A few months later, she began developing, at least in her mind, Nucomme’s Multimedia Tribute: Betty’s Story as an introduction to this soulful/sexual artist. Debuting the performance piece at Littlefield’s in 2010, Nucomme has been shaping the show for two years. On Saturday, March 17 at 9pm, she will be bringing the flamboyant spectacle to the Apollo Music Café for one night.

While women pop singers during the ’70s were usually portrayed, according to Nucomme, “as creatures desperate for affection, but not willing to have sex until they were married”, Betty Davis was atypical. “She was more like, ‘No, I want my back blown out and I want you do it.’ Unlike most singers of her generation, Betty didn’t grow-up in the church, but she knew the blues.”

Nucomme, who has spent countless hours researching Davis’ life and history, explains. “Blues singers like Lucille Bogan were not coy about singing about men humpin’ them dry or fucking them all night long. Blues singers owned their sexuality, and I think that was an important lesson for Betty.”

While Davis’ music was protested against by Christian groups, the NAACP and various radio stations, that didn’t stop her from burning a red, black and green freak flag while waving her bra in the air. “Betty just had this dynamic sexual prowess, but it wasn’t about doing something wrong, it was just who she was. Musically, she was ahead of her time.

“Of course I love all of her material, but the song Whorey Angel is a particular favorite,” Nucomme continues. “Betty is grunting and growling and she’s talking about this real intimate part of sex. She’s so much a woman, she’s not afraid to get on her knees and lift her man’s ego up. She’ll crawl, do tricks or stand on her head; whatever it takes to get him off.”

“People, when they talk about sex, they don’t talk about the realness or what they really like. That was something Betty Davis was never afraid to do.” Pulling energy from the lyrics and music, most of which Davis wrote and produced herself, Nucomme’s stage show delves deep into the wild girl persona of the music while also laying down her history.

Although Nucomme has invested a lot into bringing the provocative innovator’s sound and vision to the stage, she doesn’t want the audience to get it twisted. “I feel as though this production is important, but I’m not trying to be Betty Davis. I’m just an artist, a performer. I hope afterwards that folks will buy her songs, because, above everything else, Betty Davis was about the music.”

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Want More?

Video: Nucomme’s 2010 Tribute to Betty Davis clip

Video: Nucomme does Betty Davis’ Lone Ranger 

Listen & buy Betty Davis albums online at Light in the Attic Records.

Visit Nucomme’s site: http://www.nucomme.com/hologram-lp

OPEN: Michael A. Gonzales gets OPEN with author and sex columnist Judy McGuire

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From the moment I met writer and sexpert Judy McGuire at the Screw magazine 30th anniversary party in 1998, I knew we were destined for a wonderful friendship. Over the blare of rock and silicone chicks switching pass, we bonded over the open bar. Not only was the New Jersey native cute and witty, but she also had a geek side when it came to absorbing pop culture.

Besides her imperfection of not liking the Beatles, I recall us spending most of the night trying to “out funny” one another with occupational stories, family sagas and dating nightmares. Indeed, it is her expertise in the bloody arena of dating and the bat shit that often goes with it that inspired McGuire towards creating her column, Dategirl, in 2000.

Currently running in the Seattle Weekly, the brutally honest column is humorous and on point when it comes to the wild world of mating rituals in the urban jungle. Never mind the fact that she has been with the same man for eight years, McGuire has not forgotten what it takes to navigate through the landscape of dating. Or even, “How Not to Date”, as she titled her 2007 relationship guidebook.

In addition to her writing, McGuire also co-hosts the cool internet radio program “Mike & Judy”, where yours truly was once a guest. Discussing everything from porn to punk to drinking beer in the shower (him, not her), she and book editor, Mike Edison, are the complete opposite of church on a Sunday afternoon.

This summer, Soft Skull Press will publish her second book, the damned near banned “The Official Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘N’ Roll Lists”.

You’ve written your Ask Dategirl sex column for years—what makes you an expert?

Because I’ve been on more bad dates than anyone in the universe, so pretty much if something can go wrong, it has gone wrong, and many of those wrong things have been my fault. While logic might follow that this disastrous run would make me a bad advice-giver, it actually just makes me unshockable, which is key. Also, I’m an Aries and the oldest of five kids, so I’m a bossy know-it-all by nature.

Have there ever been any questions you just refused to answer?

There was one guy who started off as someone who just wrote me asking about hookers, but then he devolved into a kid freak. He’d write letters about watching little girls in the playground and even had a website about where the best child-watching spots were. The cops even contacted me about him and he was on the news a bunch. But because at that point he was just watching, not doing, children, they couldn’t really do anything about it. I was really glad I lived on the other side of the country during that time.

Are there any other sex columnists you follow? If so, why?

My favorite sex columnist is Rachel Kramer Bussel, and not just because she’s my friend. She isn’t afraid to be vulnerable, which is something I admire.

I love advice columns about anything and follow many. Two of my favorite advisors are the guys on “Car Talk.” Dan Savage (“Savage Love” columnist) was a giant gaping asshole to me once, so I don’t bother with him. It was so shocking, because I’d always really liked his writing, and he just attacked me. I mean, c’mon—the guy has the sex advice business locked down—I’m hardly competition. Jerk. Yes, I can hold a grudge.

You write with a lot of humor and wit—why is sex so funny?

You make funny faces and sounds, people go to ridiculous lengths to get it, and there’s moisture. What’s not funny about it?

Your first book “How Not to Date” is wonderful. Tell us a little about it and some of the feedback you’ve gotten from readers.
Why thank you! Most of the feedback has been horror. The book is framed using the terror warning color scale (remember that?), though I substituted J. Crew colors instead of the government’s tacky palette. So it starts off pretty tame with kinda-bad dates, but by the end, it’s a real shit show. And I mean “shit show” literally, BTW. It’s still available on Amazon if anyone would like to experience it firsthand!

What do you think about how sex is portrayed in pop culture such as Sex and the City?

I have to give Sex and The City credit for being one of the first series to realize that women actually possess sex drives. So that was nice. I think mostly sex is portrayed in too serious a light. Sure, you have your “American Pies”, but mostly it’s taken it so seriously because Americans are so freaked out by it. We need more sex scenes like the pool action between Nomi and Zack in Showgirls.

Your new book, coming in June, is The Official Book of Sex, Drugs, and Rock‘n’ Roll Lists. Can you tell us a little about it?

Ever wonder how many rock stars died from choking on their own drunk puke? The answer can be found in this book and I actually had to revise it because the original reports said that Thin Lizzy’s Gary Moore had died from puke-asphyxiation, but it turned out to be a heart attack. STOP THE PRESSES!

That’s the kind of hard-hitting reportage happening in this book. I was also lucky enough to get amazing contributors such as yourself, Andrew WK, Pat Kiernan (!!!), Ice-T’s wife Coco, Minor Threat’s Steve Hansgen…it was really cool how nice people were about contributing! Oderus Urungus from Gwar even wrote the introduction. My editor made me remove pornstar Jiz Lee’s Five Songs About Fisting, though. That’ll be a special reading-only list, I guess.

 In researching the book, which rock/pop artists had the wildest sex stories? Who were the biggest freaks?

I am convinced that the biggest freaks aren’t even in the book. I believe the real freakery can be found in the Christian contemporary artist community. Like Amy Grant—I’m positive she’s a slave to anal, but we’ll never know for sure because those people don’t talk.

Besides hating the Beatles, are there any other pop stars on your hit list?

The beautiful thing about hating certain bands is that if you don’t like them, you usually don’t need to hear them. But the Beatles are just everywhere and it drives me mental. Ugh.

Other people I can’t stand: Coldplay, Chris Brown (because he’s a piece of shit—I don’t even know what he sounds like), Counting Crows, the Grateful Dead, any “jam” band ever, Rush, Fallout Boy, Billy Joel, Zooey Deschanel’s vanity project, and Radiohead. That should seal my fate as a philistine. I just don’t “get” Radiohead.

Having just seen Midnight in Paris, I’m curious—which era of history do you think had the best sex?

Just like the movie sort of implies, there’s a certain appeal to thinking about working your way though knickers and corsets, or fucking filthy hippies in the grass at Woodstock, but the reality is, you need to make the most of the era you’re living in now. However, I will say I was a lot more limber in the ‘80s…

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OPEN: Michael A. Gonzales and erotica writer Cole Riley in Conversation

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Who is Cole Riley? Blending the genres of crime fiction and erotica, he writes about street life in vivid, gritty detail while weaving in steamy sex and believable intimacy. As a sensual storyteller of fact and fantasy, he explores the age-old questions of love and desire. “I want to expand the dialogue of what makes us the same and different when that sudden sexual urge hits us. Ignorance and intolerance are our enemies,” Riley says. Riley gets OPEN with Michael A. Gonzales and names the writers and music that influence his work.

As a writer and a reader, what is it about erotica that attracts you to the genre?

Eroticism is an important ingredient of life. It’s not about naughty words or nasty books, or something sinful. I see erotica, when it’s done right, as beyond porn and its emphasis on lust or seduction. Critics see it as “the literature of pussy and dick,” but a good erotic narrative mixes the language of the soul with the urges of the flesh. Ever read something by Henry Miller, James Baldwin, Anais Nin, Carlene Hatcher Polite, Laurence Durrell, Hal Bennett, Gayl Jones, or D.H. Lawrence? Sensuality burning off the page. In a sense, that’s erotica. That’s what attracts me.

As a fan of both crime fiction and erotica, what writers do you think do a good job of combining the two genres? Any that you might suggest?

Back in the day, I read James Cain, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, Norman Mailer, and Ed McBain, the guy who wrote the screenplay to Hitchcock’s The Birds. McBain, who was a master of police procedurals, wrote some very erotic novels in his later years. As for Black authors, the gritty Chester Himes wrote a lusty Pinktoes, John A. Williams did the sultry Mothersill and The Foxes, and Walter Mosley penned the steamy Killing Johnny Fry. Other recommended writers who combine sex and slaughter are: Lawrence Block, John Lutz, Rex Miller, James Ellroy, Gary Phillips, Thomas S. Roche, Christa Faust, Vicki Hendricks, Ruth Rendell, and Patricia Highsmith.

Your last book was “Too Much Boogie: Erotic Remixes of the Dirty Blues”. Can you tell me how you came up with this concept?

Zetta Brown, a very capable erotica writer who wrote a story for my collection, “Making The Hook-up,” came up with the idea for an erotic anthology which used blues themes. She and her husband, Jim, have a publishing company, Logical Lust.com, in Scotland, with a very fine catalog of choice publications. I selected the writers and stories. The submissions came from all over the world. It was a labor of love.

How does sex, music and writing figure in your life as well as these stories?

Other than soul music, Motown and the Philly groove, blues played a significant part in my household. My father, who was born in Mississippi, loved the blues and that music provided the essential playlist for my childhood. During my youth, I read Baldwin, Wright, Gaines, Williams, Ellison, Iceberg Slim, and a guilty pleasure, Harold Robbins. I never thought sex, music, or writing didn’t equal life or living.

Should your short stories and novels have soundtracks?

I’ve always used music when I write, especially for my novels such as the raw blues of Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, Jimmy Reed and Ida Cox for Hot Snake Nights. Or the raunch of Prince and Millie Jackson for Rough Trade, or the smooth-as-silk sound of Brook Benton and Lou Rawls for The Devil To Pay, or the razor-sharp jabs of Archie Shepp and Lee Morgan for The Killing Kind. I played the samba-tinged songs of Jobim, Gilberto, Getz, Airto and Flora Purim because of the Brazilian tinge in Dark Blood Moon. For the recent novels, Harlem Confidential and Guilty As Sin, it was all about the ass, booty worship, and songs by Lil Kim, Da Brat, Foxy Brown and Trina. Now, I’m listening to songs by Gil Scott-Heron, Common, John Legend, and Nas in preparation for my new novel, Let Them Talk, a young brother wrongly accused of rape and railroaded into prison. It is based partly on a true story which ended badly, very badly indeed.

You once worked for the respectable porn magazine, Oui. What was that like?

This is a funny story. I was broke and out of work. I was making the rounds and went into a building in the Times Square area. In the elevator, I overheard this man, who said he needs an editor for his magazine. I can believe my ears. I started work that next day. It was incredible. Every day was a splendid erotic adventure. I looked forward to going to work every day.

Did you meet any interesting people?

Everyone on staff was interesting. Everyone had a story. Our secretary was the delicious porn starlet Anna Ventura, who I think is in Paris now. My mentors were Peter Wolf, the editor-in-chief, and Dian Hanson, who is the creative director at Taschen now. All of the porn greats popped into our office: Vanessa Del Rio, Susie Nero, Seka, Ron Jeremy, Erica Boyer, Annette Haven. Marilyn Chambers, Linda Lovelace, Lisa DeLeeuw, and Samantha Fox. I remember when there was a public outcry when the magazine published risqué photos of Linda Blair, of The Exorcist fame, and Phyllis Hyman, the unbelievably beautiful singer. I learned so much about sex, sensuality, and eroticism from those people and that rebellious atmosphere.

You’ve edited a few erotica collections including “Making the Hook-up”. As an editor, what inspires you when shaping a book?

In this case, I wanted to expand the range of Black erotica, taking it beyond what it previously had been. Any work can be vulgar, gross and coarse. But that was not what I wanted. I wanted something that smoked and sizzled, and embraced all the richness and variety of Black sexuality. With the next collections, I’ll push it even further, combining style and sensuality. Cleis Press should be commended for taking the risk to promote Black and gender erotica.

Is the process romantic in the Maxwell Perkins sense?

Well, I believe Max Perkins was the editor of Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe. They say Perkins edited Hemingway’s most accomplished work until 1947 and when the editor died, the great writer’s writing suffered. I know this much. I know that any writer worth his or her salt suffers over their writing and tries to do the work justice. I know any writer can use a little polishing because all writers possess blind spots in their analysis and execution. I know that editing and writing are two different gifts. And I know that the less effective writer bitch over every change in grammar or approach. Long ago, I learned to accept the changes of good editors and experienced writing mentors.

As a fan of music, does the shape of your novels and collections follow a certain rhythm?

I’m listening to all kinds of modern music. Everything. As I usually say in my classes, don’t be tame. Don’t try to be mediocre. Try to do something original. Make the words count for something. Or as the great John A. Williams said to me one day: “If a writer doesn’t take chances, what good is he? Our life is speeding up, robbing us of our souls, and making us more and less human.” I agree with him totally.

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OPEN: Burlesque Performer Chicava HoneyChild of Brown Girls Burlesque gets OPEN with fayemi shakur

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When it comes to the culture of respectability, few women are brave enough to cross pristine lines and explore alternative lifestyles and ideas. It’s one thing you must love about Chicava HoneyChild who is the Creative Producer of Brown Girls Burlesque, a women of color burlesque troupe based in NYC. The troupe was created to diversify and addresses the predominately white worldview that is persistent in burlesque and other art forms and cultural spheres. Yes honey, brown girls do burlesque and Chicava can teach you a thing or two about the history of strip dancing.

 

What is Brown Girls Burlesque?
Brown Girls Burlesque (BGB) is a women of color burlesque troupe. We’re based in NYC and make theatrical burlesque shows that highlight the unique sexuality and perspectives of Brown women. Brown meaning African, Asian, Latina, Indian, Native American and other indigenous folk.

We hope and believe that BGB has inspired more women of color to take their place on the burlesque stage. Though it has improved it’s still not uncommon to go to a burlesque show and not see any women of color performers. Equally important to see brown folks on stage is seeing them in the audience. BGB shows are made with a brown audience in mind and work to shake off the predominately white worldview that is persistent in burlesque and other art forms and cultural spheres. Our audience is intelligent, artistic and very diverse.

How long have you been a burlesque performer?
I wanted to do it since 2000 but felt put off by the scene and truly did not see my reflection and to some degree did not relate to the work I was seeing. The burlesque community was a small group of people doing their thing at that time and I met the captain head cheerleader asshole. There’s an element of racism and racist themes in the community that I wanted to stay away from. I was looking for something I could help create and form, teach classes, help others feel better about themselves and make a positive impact. Some people can’t see through their white privilidge so for me it’s about picking your battles and where you want to put your energy.

I finally started performing in 2006 while pursuing my acting career in Los Angeles. It provided me a way to create in a self-determined way. I ended up moving home to Brooklyn in the summer of 2007, wondering how to reconsider the scene and along came BGB.

What is the difference between a burlesque dancer and a stripper?
The roots of the golden era of burlesque run through both these genres of feminine spectacle; there’s a divide as to who got what: (It’s like a divorce) the burlesquers got the stage, the costumes and theatricality. The strippers got the salaries. A handful of performers do make a terrific living as burlesque performers but not nearly as many as club strippers. Women choose to perform burlesque as a creative passion and the exchange with the audience is about seduction, enticement, storytelling, politics or combinations of these elements.

Club stripping has a money/power dynamic. A man gets this much for that much. A woman is giving that in pursuit of keeping the bills paid or better still building a solid financial coffer. In club stripping only certain women are acceptable for baring their bodies – the normative beauty standard applies, though it may vary in a given club i.e. Atlanta’s strong Black strip club scene. In the past the burlesque stage was patrolled and recruited for in much the same way. In the neo-burlesque scene you do find a great spectrum of body types but with rare exception the few making an international wave fit a retro and white aesthetic.

What are the negative stereotypes associated with both?
Some people consider burlesque and club stripping sex work. Some club strippers do not consider themselves sex workers, some do. Once you’re labeled this way you are supposedly some kind of ruined woman, Godless, harlot whatever disempowering mumbo-jumbo they use this week.  In America, the taboos and stereotypes about it are easing but I know performers whose families still don’t know they perform burlesque.

We have a joke in the troupe that if you’re doing anything that can be perceived as sex work folks gon’ put you in the Ho’ Basket. We’ve enjoyed all the nude pictures of Betty White circulating lately… she’s gotten a lot of mileage in that basket and without saying a word about it, stood as a role model for sexy positivity.

Why do you think the expression of Black female sexuality is so powerful?
It’s powerful and confrontational because of the oppressions we’ve come through. We are still shaking off the repression of our own experience of our beauty, sexuality, sensuality, passion and self-determination.

And the gig is UP! You can feel it about to blow. It’s palpable and exciting for me right now to be spreading the word through teaching, performing and being a supportive sister of BGB. We are remarkably beautiful creatures and we are actively reclaiming that space within the world and most importantly, ourselves. We have Black Girls Rock going on, the work that Michaela Angela Davis is doing and in L.A., the Black Girls State of the Union. We’re into feeling good about ourselves and everybody else is just gonna have to get on board.

What types of themes or stories have you told through your performances?
Evil Beautiful Sunshine is my Condoleezza Rice Epic. It is based on an experimental theater piece about her that explores what I consider her descend to the dark side. I
captured the essence of this in the piece with music: Eartha Kitt’s I Wanna Be Evil, Marilyn Manson’s The Beautiful People and it ends with the reprise from Hair. I gave it a happy ending, just to be optimistic and hey, she managed to not get us all blown to smithereens.

I also have a piece called The Bit About The Money on the financial system. It’s set to music, The O’Jays’ For the Love of Money and dash of Pink Floyd’s Money. It’s a multimedia extravaganza with film that projected to move the story along. It’s the first in what will be The Conspiracy Saga and the next will deal with religion.

I also have torch songs that I love to perform to that turn a straightforward striptease into something more.  A torch song is a heavy hearted ballad like the ending ballad in Cats.

Does the life of Josephine Baker provide any inspiration for you? 
Yes, Josephine was one of the best burlesque entertainers of all time and she’s so interesting. Her life reminds me of the movie, The Cage of Stardom. She went crazy—and how could she not with the added factor of racial delineation and the act of self loathing.  Some have said that she protested wearing that infamous banana skirt at first because she didn’t want to be portrayed as a jungle bunny. Some people believe she was in on the joke. In 1936, the banana skirt she wore was literally like a panty. It evolved from a whimsical thing to an aggressive appearance. There’s a rebellion that started to happen that might not be voiced. The skirt went from a whimsical panty to a banana spiked belt.

She was brave because she threw herself out there and made it work. I love her courage to just go for it. There were ups and downs and miscalculations. But she’s amazing and I wish we had a field of entertainers as interesting and strong as her.

Who are some of your favorite iconic foremothers of burlesque and how do they
inspire you?
Aida Overton Walker schools me in what it means to be a revolutionary woman without
ever even saying you are. The height of her career was in the early 1900s and she was pushing boundaries and pulling back to play nice all at once.

All of the women who chose burlesquing as a career are trailblazers. Really imagine deciding you were going to become a stripper in 1950 instead of staying home raising kids and looking after a man. I’m graced to build relationships with my foremothers Toni Elling, Tina Pratt and Lottie the Body to name a few. Their stories excite me, refine me, and comfort me.

How does “teasing” add a little something special to a relationship, performance, and life in general?
For me the most important thing it can add is to a woman’s appreciation of herself and what she is feeling in her body. We’ve become so fixated in this culture on getting things from others for our emotional and erotic satisfaction. I believe incorporating burlesque into your life can help reconnect women to their essential erotic self, much like reading erotica, in a physical way. As we relearn how to get with ourselves and feel whole our interactions with others become more about sharing than need based, opening up a glorious spectrum of possibilities.

Oh yes, one is encouraged to use their burlesque in everyday life. It can be as simple as how you remove your winter scarf when you get to the bar.

Do you think teasing is a lost art form today?
Teasing as an art form will never be lost as long as women and feminine gender identity exist. It’s what we do – it’s our playfulness. Now it is easier to tune into when you feel connected to yourself and not afraid of losing for lack of a better word. And by losing I mean a love interest’s attention. Making them or him or her is integral to burlesque. To some men foreplay is teasing. It’s what they gotta do to get there, because their natural inclination is just to go for the jewels. I think women forget that it’s cyclical and that teasing renews with every encounter.

Video:Chicava’s Evil Beautiful Sunshine Performance

Video: Chicava’s Money Movie

 

 For more on BGB visit: http://browngirlsburlesque.com/

Curator Danny Simmons, Photographer Quazi King and editor Michael A. Gonzales get OPEN about Neekid Blk Grls

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Neekid Blk Gurls is a new exhibit curated by Danny Simmons featuring the work of twenty talented photographers who capture the beauty of Black women. Here curator Danny Simmons, featured photog Quazi King and Michael A. Gonzales get OPEN about the exhibition and the dialogue it introduces.

Danny Simmons: On the Exhibition

I put this concept and show together because of my deep and abiding love for Black women. Today, Black women are at the center of our spiritual and cultural life yet in the media and popular culture they are usually depicted as objects…not objects of deep wells of wisdom, strength and beauty but objects of base sexuality with exaggerated sexually referenced features. Black women are most often portrayed in videos and on TV in two lights as whores and material opportunists and/or mammy types that only serve to nurture the interests of others. The image of the long suffering Black woman left by a Black man to fend for herself and the family alone is a stereotype that is the prevalent image often put forth.

I want to demonstrate with this exhibit, the truer nature of Black women as self-assured, beautiful, loving and in their many forms as fine as a M.F. When it comes down to it, in my way I just wanted to honor Black women for who they are and for their dreams and aspirations for us all. I want people to walk away admiring the artistic integrity and vision of the photographers in the show with smiles on their faces after seeing just how dope Black women are.

Quazi King: On Images of Naked Black Women

Why is a show like this important?
Quazi King: Many of us are wired to think less of ourselves, our culture, heritage, and in some cases less of our women. The large majority of our community perceive and define beauty solely by how is depicted in high-fashion magazines which ironically pays little or no attention to Black culture.

In American pop culture today, the phrase “naked Black woman” paints a picture of either a classless woman in an obscene pose or overly sexual. Shows like “Neekid Blk Gurls” are important because they are designed to challenge that mentality by showing Black women in a more artistic and dignify manner.

How would you describe your style of photography?
QK: Some say my style is raw and cultural driven, recently someone defined it as Afro-futuristic (they lost me on the futuristic part but oh well) To be honest, I never know how to successfully address this. It’s something I hardly think about because I’m always changing, so being comfortable with a style is a bit counterproductive.

Why do you enjoy photographing Black women?
QK: Shooting sisters is my forte. To me it’s a quest for beauty. The cocoa skin, the cheekbones, the rawness, the untapped sea of talent, etc. It’s a process that always manages to surprise me with beauty despite the redundancy. It’s really gratifying.

Michael A. Gonzales: On Neekid Blk Gurls

Nude female figures have been a consistent subject in art since the days of prehistoric cave paintings. Yet, when naked Black women become the cultural subjects, their images are more often fetishized. From the yesteryear days of bootylicious Venus Hottentot (Sarah Baartman) being exhibited throughout Europe as the original freak of the week to the rump shaking video vixens posing in glossy hip-hop magazines, nude Black women are viewed in the cultural realm as “hoes” or hoochies.

Even in our postmodern times, sisters still struggle with artistic representation that insists on depicting them, as acclaimed writer Maya Angelou once observed, “…as leering buxom wenches with round heels, open thighs and insatiable sexual appetites.” While the tongue in cheek title of the latest Rush Arts Gallery group show Neekid Blk Gurls textually teases the stereotype that even folks of color have come to expect when viewing Black female nudes, the images chosen for the show attempts to dive deep into the richness of cultural history.

Rejecting the theory of nude Black women imagery as overtly sexual and pornographic, curator Danny Simmons has put together a show that radiates with passion, strength and beauty. “It was our mission to take the traditional art form of female nudes and show images of Black women beyond that of sexual objects,” Simmons explains. With a juxtaposition of various styles included in this collective project, Neekid Blk Gurls overflows with arresting images by 20 photographers including Barron Claiborne, Delphine Fawundu-Buford, Guenter Knop, Mahlot Sansosa, Radcliffe Roye, Saddi Khali and others.

While photogenic works of this kind are often ignored by critics and curators alike, Neekid Blk Gurls attempts to redefine the subject of Black nude women for a new generation of art aficionados. Ranging from the brutally beautiful portrait of Russell Fredrick’s amputee staring defiantly into the camera to the Afro-futurism of Ingrid Baar’s almost painterly shot of an African warrior woman to the visual poetics of Alaric Campbell’s dancer and Mikelle Moore‘s glorious interpretation of “fet-ish,” each cocoa hued image is alluring.

While none of the artists were attempting to be overly political, in their own way each image in Neekid Blk Gurls serves as a critique on both race and racism, class and classicism.

Photo Credit: Quazi King

Nekkid Blk Gurls opens December 8th and is on view through January 27, 2012 at the Rush Arts Gallery in NYC. For more info visit www.rushartsgallery.org. For more on Quazi King, visit http://www.quazimottoonwax.com.

 

 

Poet, performer, actor and musician Saul Williams Gets OPEN with fayemi shakur

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Saul Williams is one of the dopest lyricists and thinkers under the sun. In 1996 he won The Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s Grand Slam Championship and in 1998 he served as both writer and actor in the classic film, Slam which won the Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Camera D’Or (Golden Camera). His poetry inspired a new generation of poets and poetry lovers and he has produced four colletions of his work. In 2001, he began pursuing music with a shape shifting flair that attracted listeners of a different order. If there was a prerequisite for his art it would be that one have a deep appreciation for freedom and deviation. But there is no such prerequisite. Creating within so many genres he says, balances him. From his newfound home in Paris, Saul talks about the importance of vulnerability in art, in life, and his latest intergalactic pop release, Volcanic Sunlight –his experiment with rock, electronic, glitch and hip-hop polyrhythm.  

 Would you describe yourself as an angry poet?
I have angry poems. I definitely have angry poems. The poems that I am known for are probably one one-hundredth of what I’ve written. I like channeling energy. When I’m angry it can be fun sometimes to write and come back to it with more clarity when I’m not angry. I was definitely angry at times so some of it might sound a little fucked up to some but at the end of the day it’s about poetry. Not too many people get angry and write poems. If you get angry and you write a poem I would argue that you ain’t really angry. There’s a difference between being angry and saying fuck you. Now if you ask me if I am a defiant poet, I might say yeah. Like fuck that. I’m not angry, but fuck that. That’s what my album is about. That I can be rebellious about everything I want to be rebellious about without being angry.

What is the importance of being vulnerable in art and in society?
When I think of the importance of vulnerability I think of it in life and where I place that in my art. Vulnerability is something that I grew to learn and appreciate in myself and for myself, just by becoming a better listener. There was a time when I think I really talked a lot and I didn’t have time for other people’s opinions. Thankfully someone helped me see myself and I didn’t like what I saw. So, I approached vulnerability from listening. What has helped me find my voice as an artist too has been my sense of hearing. Depending on how you hear a beat, as a rapper, will determine where you will place your vocals. Different approaches have different effects. If you place words over all the beats or between the beats, it’s going to have a different effect. A song can have a lot of energy in it. You can bring the energy up or bring it down. And if you want to bring the energy up then you have to listen very closely. Listening has definitely opened me up to collaborations with other people and as an artist making music I am collaborating with instruments, too. That’s why there aren’t a lot of words in Volcanic Sunlight because I didn’t want the words to get in the way of the music. In American society most of us are dissuaded from becoming an artist. That doesn’t really happen in a socialist country like where I am now, artists receive more support here. As a result of this system in America we really have to boost our ego to make us believe we can do it and when you do it you have to boost your spirit too because it can come out of balance.

You wrote the liner notes for D’Angelo’s “Voodoo” album. How did that come about and what are your thoughts what that album inspired?
D’Angelo asked me to do it while he was recording the album. I’ve never been an R&B head just to be clear. I can get into the classic Donnie, Marvin and all that. Erykah, D’Angelo, Bilal, Jill, Georgia Anne Muldrow I have made an exception for. D’Angelo I made a huge exception for. A friend of mine alluded to some song she heard in the studio that gave her some sort of sexual high and I had to go to hear what he was creating. D’Angelo’s manager Dom wanted to turn him into a sex symbol which really wasn’t what he was into. I went and stayed in the studio with him while he recorded the album and it’s rare that I feel compelled to write liner notes for an artist. But I probably did it because I liked his song “Shit, Damn, Motherfucker“. I heard his new album, too. It’s amazing and I’m a harsh critic of music. I don’t like a lot of shit. And I’m an even harsher critic of R&B but I love it. He’s doing very well.

Do you see a benefit to applying existentialism to art?
I approach life in general, in my experience that way. The high points of most moments in my life are when I’m not thinking about it, when I’m fully in the moment. But when I’m not absorbed I like to foster a dialogue with others or with myself on the meaning of what I’m doing and why. Whether it’s in writing a song or making love, for me I need to feel a visceral connection. I don’t really have that groupie jean. I can’t make myself too excited about something that isn’t tied to my overall grand understanding or conception of reality and my relationship to it.

Can you share a significant experience in your life that made you feel OPEN?
Heartbreak is probably the easiest to access. It makes you realize how open you were. I think of heartbreak in terms of something being broken open like a coconut that you have to break through to get to its richest essence. In myself I’ve observed a level of honesty and clarity where you can no longer lie to yourself. This is what it is. This is what I was doing. This is what I was after. Heartbreak has done that. It’s an experience I’m grateful for because it teaches me so much. I think of it as a bigger, deeper space to be filled. It’s a cathartic experience. A lot of people think of it as an excuse to be closed and jaded. But me I think of it as being broken open.

Is there any special reason why you chose 11.11.11 to release your latest project?
Yeah! That shit just sounded nice!  The label said the album could come out anytime between the 7th and the 14th. I’m familiar with numerology and all and I read about that day on that day but to me 11.11.11 just felt right. A lot of the album is written with the idea of inevitable day when a transformation would occur. In the song Volcanic Sunlight I say: ‘and on the day when the birds started singing the car alarms’.  In the first song Look to the Sun, I describe the day a tsunami comes. A man says: ‘don’t run from the water, run to the water’ and everybody turns around and runs into the wave. I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about but intuitively the songs are references to this transformative day. I don’t try to make too much sense of it. I’m unclear on what my job is but I’m doing it.

How much attention or value should an artist pay to criticism and praise?
For the most part I don’t fuck around with too much criticism or praise. If I want one or the other I go to a social networking site. Sometimes people will say something nice. Sometimes someone goes I don’t really like @saulwilliams’ new album. They’re not really thinking about what they are putting out there. I don’t expect my friends to listen to my work but Volcanic Sunlight  is kind of more of an album I made for me and my friends to listen to. I think I made my other albums for my imaginary friends. Volcanic Sunlight is for my real friends. I want people to feel energy. That’s all I’m trying to deliver. The same thing you would get from juice. Just drink water and turn it up. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to do that through my experiments with polyrhythm. I’m just playing with it, that energy, the same energy I discovered in Fela Kuti’s music and Brazilian music, that energy in music.

For more on Saul Williams visit: www.saulwilliams.com
Follow him on Twitter @saulwilliams

Music:
Explain My Heart – video

Triumph (from Volcanic Sunlight)

Raw (from The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust)

Poetry:

You massage the universe’s spine
the way you twirl through time
and leave shadows on the sun.

My love is the wind song
if it is up to me I’ll never die
If it is up to me the sun would never cease to shine
and the Moon will never cease to glow
and I’ll dance a thousand tomorrows in the sun rays
of the moon waves and bathe in the yesterdays of days to come
ignoring all of my afterthoughts and preconceived notions.

If it is up to me, it is up to me
as thus is my love, untainted, eternal.
The wind is the Moon’s imagination, wandering
it seeps through cracks,
ripples the grass, explores the unknown
my love is my soul’s imagination.
How do I love you? 
Imagine.
- Saul Williams “Untitled” from the movie Slam

OPEN: fayemi shakur interviews poet, playwright, actor Liza Jessie Peterson

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     Liza Jessie Peterson is a funny lady but she doesn’t aim to be a comedian. She’s a naturally gifted, deeply spiritual, storyteller. A poet, playwright and classically trained actor, she gained popularity performing at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café in the 90’s as part of the legendary vanguard of slam poetry.  Liza’s poetry has been published in several anthologies: Vibe: The History of Hip Hop, Slam, Bum Rush The Page and The Long Shot Anthology.

She has written at least eight plays and has starred in several films including Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and Love the Hard Way with Pam Grier and Adrien Brody. She even assembled a band, Ghetto Orchestra, made up of notable (now mainstream) musicians who brilliantly complimented her poetry and monologues. 

When Hollywood wasn’t calling enough, poetry readings weren’t paying and waitressing wasn’t cutting it, Liza took her play and her message, The Peculiar Patriot, on the road in prison maintaining a beauty and style all her own — straight, no chaser. In our debut issue of OPEN coming soon, Liza shares her poem, Piscean Solo. Here Liza gets OPEN, sharing a few of those peculiar things that make her a performance artist worth watching.

Your first play Chiron’s Homegirl Healer Howls had a spiritual premise to it as does much of your work. Why is it important to you to include spirituality in your art?

That play was a funk opera. It was about the evolution of your internal magic and the journey from homegirl to healer, you know, the universal Black girl journey. My work is greatly influenced by my life and how I experience and observe it. I have a very spiritual outlook on life. So there’s always a spiritual reason, lesson and experience in everything we do. I look at my life through a spiritual lens. I can’t separate my experience from my art.

What is the connection between spirituality and sex to you? What does sex feel like with that connection and without it?

Inherently the act of sex is the ability and the potential to create life. So sex is the potential of manifesting a miracle at its core. Therefore sex is a sacred act. You’re in the frequency of manifesting something divine. Without it if you don’t have that understanding, it’s a glorified nut and empty. This is not some holier than thou statement. I’ve had some good nuts. I’m not mad at that. But I haven’t had that tantric experience yet. I can only imagine it is experiencing the fullness of love, something divine and sacred. 

What power is there in spoken word?

The power is word sound power. Sound is a vibration and frequency. When reading it you have the freedom and the luxury to sit with the line and the phrase to digest it more slowly. With spoken word or performance poetry you’re getting a grenade in your ear, like an explosion. But when you read it you can dissect the piece on a deeper level. I really don’t know how it impacts my audiences. I just put it out there. If I don’t perform it affects me physically and emotionally. I have a need to perform, to express. If an artist doesn’t create, we’ll go mad.

Liza and Pam Grier

How did Pam Grier inspire your acting career?

When I saw her in ‘Foxy Brown’ (I believe that was the one where she had razor blades in her Afro and later pulled a gun from it too! had me gasping!) I was in total awe of her beauty, her sexiness, her height, stature, and her straight up gangster-ness. I said in that moment “that’s what I want to do…I want to be like her, I wanna be the next Pam Grier.” So having the opportunity to work with her in the movie Love the Hard Way with Adrien Brody was a dream come true. I was star struck. I’ve been in the company of many celebrities and I have never gotten star struck. But, Pam Grier? I was fawning and crushing, on set no less!

Why do you like to incorporate humor in your work?

Life is either a comedy or a tragedy. I find humor in everything. That’s how Black people survive, through humor. I was raised by a Class A-1-holdin’ court-take no prisoners-JohhnyWalkerBlack sippin-father. In our house if you couldn’t talk shit you were getting shut down. I grew up with a lot of humor in my house. It’s the evolution of Black folks’ survival. That’s how Daddy taught us.  It’s interesting I don’t try to write “funny”. I’m not looking to write a joke. Because I have such a dark sense of humor at times it just comes out that way because it’s how I am. If I try to write funny the shit be corny. I can go to the salon but I’m a saloon broad at heart. We like to talk shit, laugh loud and cuss real good.

What’s next for you?

I’m completing two books to be published next year that represent two significant touchtone experiences in my life as an artist. The first is The Peculiar Patriot, which includes poems I wrote, the play, a pin up calendar and journal entries from my prison tour. My professional and my personal life were consumed with prison for a long time. As I started to do research on the prison industrial complex, I found myself going down the rabbit hole and gave birth to these projects.

The concept for the calendar comes from a line from the play the Peculiar Patriot: “I was voted number one prison industrial complex pin up…” I thought it could be a funny, marketing tool. The idea of the calendar evolved into being a piece of inspirational memorabilia to bring attention to the draconian industry.

from The Peculiar Patriot 2012 Prison Pin-Up Calendar

The other is a memoir: Finding Light in Dark Journey: An Artist’s 15 Year Journey through America’s Prison about experiences working within the prison industrial complex. Being a teaching artist in a prison is one thing by itself but being a full time Board of Education certified teacher teaching teenage boys in Rikers Island is another thing. All I could do was journal about the escapades and situations. I was in Bizarro Land. I went back and looked at my journal and realized it was a book. Working with those teenage boys was a mix between Welcome Back, Kotter and The Wire. Funny and scary.

For more on Liza’s work visit www.lizajessiepeterson.com

Also check out Liza’s beautiful photos in The Peculiar Patriot 2012 Prison Pin Up Calendar: http://lizajessiepeterson.com/calendar.html

& The Calendar Manifesto: Black Ass, Beautiful Art – A Meditation: http://lizajessiepeterson.com/calendar-manifesto.html