A sneak-peek at AFROTITI

INT. HOUSE - BEDROOM - SAME DAY

Hebony sits cross legged on her bed. Her appearance has become even more regal: the sphinx is perched on a velvet cushion in her lap, her hands delicately folded on its head. Each of her movements is deliberate in their womanly efficacy, but not forced. Each "patron" that comes in kneels at the foot of the bed and asks a question. There's something servile about the way they approach her. One by one they file in, ultimately leaving with shocked looks on their faces and slaps on the back from the awaiting people.

DONNY, a straggly white boy in a forest green army jacket saunters over to Hebony and kneels down. Before he speaks he repositions his minuscule John Lennon sunglasses to the tip of his nose.

DONNY

Aw man, Hebony, I don't know. I just do not know. I try. You know, I try, baby. But I can't make it happen. I can't live to my full...potential, ya dig? So how can I score some dough real quick?

Hebony smiles and tilts the sphinx so that she can look at its face. Her brows furrow. "Rien Ne Va Plus" by Funk Factory begins to play. Her eyes glaze over again.

INT. VELVET ROOM - DAY

A white cat preens itself in the center of a small room covered floor-to-ceiling with violet, velvet fabric. The cat is wearing a gold collar and necklace. On the floor surrounding it are gold coins and burning incense cones.

To the right of the cat a beautiful Egyptian woman wearing a gold dress reclines on her side, holding up a purple bunch of grapes. A second woman, dressed in the same manner, sits on the cat's other side, fanning it with a large palm frond. Both women stare straight ahead, their beauty heightened by the utter inaction of their features.

INT. HOUSE - BEDROOM - SAME DAY

Hebony disengages her eyes from the sphinx. She grins at Donny, finding this vision particularly entertaining. He in turn takes off his sunglasses. Obviously, he anticipates an answer that transcends sagacity. His mouth is slightly agape.

HEBONY

Boy, you gotta embrace your inner feline. And I ain't talkin about foxy ladies and slick moves. I mean, you gotta find yourself a nice show cat, some real slammin' kitty to parade around and get some attention. Once you do you'll be swimmin' in so many Benjamin Franklins you'll wanna tell that fool to lay off.

I'm excited; are you!?

iWhy ithe iLong iFace (version 21.0)?

((From the latest issue of THE WORKS...sometimes I shove the jagged fruitiness aside and write like some sort of Person.))

William F. Ogburn, perhaps the most famous sociologist and statistician of the 20th century, was the first to introduce the idea that culture inherently lags behind technology. A sort of economic Freudian, Ogburn asserted that humans base their decisions off a series of economic motives, which ultimately, and immutably, set apart the private and public sphere. But Ogburn's writing, although at first-glance so dry and matter-of-fact that it seems to just be one more credo incited by America's economic woes, soon begins to blanch under searching eyes, and melt into one, large, white flag of surrender.

The problem lies in the fact that Ogburn did not see, or want, to find out a solution to the lag. He was scared of eccentrics, of lavish living and not-so admissible pursuits. To him, happiness was recognizing the delayed action of human beings and being able get-by, make a living, have a family, play golf. Be Normal. Nowadays, normality just won't cut it in the long-run, but still the current social climate points toward a worldwide acceptance of defeatist tendencies. People are letting their aspirations and talents slip by the wayside because they are scared to fail, and yet they still complain of not having a reason behind their unhappiness, or an identity as a whole.

If only we could let go of the stigma of living in a "post-postmodern" world and accept that we are in the midst of what can possibly be deemed the true “Era of Inspiration,” without it actually seeming uninspired. Sure, technology has alleviated some of our hardships, and stirred up the tempo of day-to-day living, but it has not yet matched the greatest machine of all: the human brain. There is still so much to discover, and now is the time when humans should reap the benefits of having access to knowledge on a grand scale, and simply create.

So, Generation Y-ers, take the earbuds out for a while and look around. The motive is not to trump the technological powers that be, or to try to take them down, but to take a minute to place everything- yourself, a computer, a hero- underneath a critical eye, revealing inconsistencies and neglect. Should you still bemoan it all? No. Take action, and the gears of change can begin to function, straightening priorities and fulfilling the wonders that surround us. Teach old Ogburn a lesson: that happiness is not found in resignation.

NOT AGAIN

I opened the door and almost stepped on a dead, naked, 2-foot-tall hooker lying on my bedroom floor.

...

But then I realized that the "My Size Barbie" I painted to look like a tropical sacrifice and draped a feather boa on had only fallen over.

Phew.

who will be in my neighborhood?

CHICAGO!? Thousands of Anton Laveys millin around, free and easy- they got no hair to muss. Black women on the train with purple lipstick, glitter bamboo shards strapped onto the tips of their fingers, sinking those suckers into newly bought Rice Krispie Treats.

NEW YORK!? Tourists from some Norwegian country. Maybe just retarded Minnesotans, squealing and gurgling as they catch the sights. If an angry New Yorker got in their way they'd just plop on the ground- rotund gelatinous spheres, bouncing and chortling down 5th Ave.

I'm trying to set it all out ordinally, phantasmagorically..

When I was 14 I discovered agoraphobia in Spain, seeking sanctuary in a mansion governed by a 5-foot-tall man. But reality was seeking me, and I uncomfortably realized that his livelihood was powered by the elevator that ran up all 4 floors, so that his small army of workers wouldn't waste their strength lifting luggage and packages, instead devoting their time to dinners filled with serrano ham and soft-boiled eggs.

When I was 15 I tried my hand at Delphic esteem, feeling like the baby renegade amongst my slightly older peers. They were the idols of art school babylon: pale flesh squeezed into denim and lace, talking about Leonard Cohen and running away to Argentina. Screw adolescence, they wanted to gut it all, drag the entrails across a sky-high canvas. Say it was "inspired."

When I was 16 I lined the tops of my eyelids with gold glitter and decked myself out like some 1980's call girl. But I spat on irony...My flesh and ego were too unruffled for any of that. Then I traveled through the Inferno, and wasn't able to discern the actual human beings from the fiery demigods, the friend from the foe. So I gave up that stint and pledged allegiance to Alva and distortion, hoping that my reverence would end up being fulfilled with some sort of urbanite glory.

When I was 17 I was part of an epic battle- My brain is a perennial abode...NAW man! It's perched on top of some godforsaken cactus in the backyard of some poet/mystic in Arizona, tinted a turquoise shade, serving as a vulture's foothold - but I stuck it out. Read a lot. Wrote some more...Words stuck to me like Lilliputians, insistent little bastards piercing my skin and squeezing out swollen drops of my essence - melted PVC - claiming their function was to cleanse my soul. I wasn't always so sure.

When I was 18.....

THE HOLINESS OF THINGS

((From the latest issue of POLYGON))

They were the largest pumps you ever did see; huge pink heels that once belonged to Barbie Gargantua XXX, smiter of bratty little girls with bowl cuts and lateral lisps. They struck a chord in my childhood heart- tickled the ivories with 2-foot high stilettos. I'd catch sight of them and swoon, spiraling into their plastic depths with my arms straight out at my sides, falling back into the hard husk the color of a drag queen's aura, ending up in a fetal position right where the robust heel would have fit. Just one more little girl taking the Jesus route into Mattel heaven, not for humanity’s salvation but for the plasticized glory of the giant shoes outside of Orlando's FAO Schwartz. It was the same every time I caught sight of them, this routine...fully under their spell.

Now, you may balk at my kiddy shoe fetish, but the wonderment I felt about those clunkers rivals the first time I pricked my finger on a rosebush and realized that nature functions as a not-always benevolent unit, and that those little beads of blood were a testament to my fallibility.

I saw God/it/him/her/me in those shoes, plain and simple.

Sure, they were soulless. They were garish. They had been smothered by countless numbers of little girls desperate to fulfill their Thumbelina complexes, but the fact that they existed, that the inherently unnatural landscape of Orlando, Florida- home of Mickey Mouse and Holy Land Experience- could manifest itself into a pair of GIANT SHOES and not be questioned, could be coveted even, was beautiful.

If you think I’m trying to insert some sort of rah-rah-atheist subliminal message into your afternoon snack, I promise you, I’m not being facetious*. This is a shout-out to the triple-named papas of transcendental ideals, ideals that I think, should resurface in this day and age. We all perceive our lives in different ways, this is true. I mean, I'm not an overtly spiritual person. I leave the crystal hoarding and mantra chanting to my more sentient friends, but I still constantly weigh the pureness of experiences.

Over the past few years my being has been jolted a few times, shaken into a euphoric jumble, and if I happen to pair those monumental experiences with the memory of the Barbie shoes, so be it. I don’t claim to know what, or whom “God” is, but the moments when life is good- when objects please us aesthetically and soulfully, when the rose-tinted shades are lifted and everything still seems to be functioning in astral cohesion- those are the moments that might lead us toward understanding the concept better.

Unfortunately, the new surge of trends in the past decade have hindered this idea being universally accepted; novelty is given a bad name, but is surreptitiously the norm. What better example is there than the latest media-craze surrounding “Where the Wild Things Are.” On one hand, I think the film succeeded in capturing the not always pleasing to see, but undoubtedly innocent reactions between children and their surroundings. This is quite a feat when weighing the baggage of trying to convey the message of a 48-page children’s book for the world to appreciate. On the other hand, the “Wild Things” clothing and jewelry collection at Opening Ceremony plucked the pneuma right out of the story, leaving us with models dressed as if they were inspired. In reality, if people had been inspired they’d be the ones howling at the sky, knocked right out of their pretty-face catatonia for a chance to be a kid again. Take Candance and Steve Lubanski over in Pasadena: they gave each other a bunny rabbit souvenir every day as a testament to their love, and now, take pride in their plush doodads, opening up their home as the “Bunny Museum.” Every day visitors pay homage to their collection, on the surface comical, but deep down a prime example of individuality. Staid lemmings be damned!

So kiddies, gosh-darnit, if you enjoy something, embrace the reasons why you enjoyed it: those feelings of wordless bliss - the spark that sends you tumbling into a giant Barbie shoe- and no matter whether you’re looking up to Shiva, Buddha, or Anton Lavey for your grand credo, the holiness will envelop you.

* I’m also not directly condoning objectum sexuality...

Bandini's "Blood Purge for the Fatherland"

Fante stuck the impulsiveness of Americans in the middle of family values and Pinoy fisheries. He breathed life into characters that wobbled on their feet only to stand solidly on their own, now ready to whistle at passing behinds.

He embodied the megalomaniacal attitude of 1930 Los Angeles writers, typing flurries of papers with wet cigarettes dangling from his mouth.

And yet, to me at least, he signified a simple brilliance that overwhelmed any privileged predecessors. With the juice of L.A. orchards on his hands, he created novels that fueled the development of his own life by describing the development of the Golden State.