Better Late Than Never

So...

being unemployed has placed me face to face with my personal mission to become more "cultured!"

why, you ask?

wellllll,

i'm tired of being in circles where people discuss seminal pop cultural phenomena that i've never heard of

annddd

i am getting more into myself as an artist...and i want to know what has been explored, what edges of consciousness have alredy been pushed, and where i can draw inspiration from

annddd

i'm a nerd...i'm getting into history and studying the historical and present day connection between art and society

annddd

i believe that art is revolution! it is the dream of/desire for change made manifest, i feel. taken as a whole, it tells us exactly where we are during each phase of the revolution.

so yea. i'm going to start collecting a list of films i want to see, music i wanna hear, books i wanna read, etc. and posting them to the blog

just like with everything else on this blog, you know i gotta get into my backstory...where i started and where my present jumping off point is...here goes:

i started getting introduced to certain aspects of pop (and underground) culture when i entered high school...up to that point, i had been homeschooled...musically, i was raised around a random mix of artists like the beatles, sly and the family stone, the abyssians, the stylistics, a lil bit of mary j and swv from my older bro, a LIL bitta radio hits that my siblings and i managed to get away with listening to and i discovered lauryn hill on my own. (growing up we were pretty much banned from listening to a lot of mainstream stuff due to lyrical content...i have vivid memories of my father smashing CD's that belonged to my older bro of certain artists he didn't like, and rejoicing in the death of 2pac...i know, kinda mean. my dad's a unique personality.)

but in high school, i didn't know enough or feel compelled to take advantage of my newfound freedom and immerse myself deeply in music. i was focusing on going through puberty, figuring out public school and keeping my grades up! shit.

i also think i subconsciously believed that music was too vast a field for me to tackle head on, so i kind of approached it roundabout...i'd hear a song i liked on the radio, then would become obssessed with the individual artist without venturing much into the genre and seeing the connections between/evolution of musical styles.

example: i heard "amazed" by lonestar and brought an entire album by them. knowing next to nothing about country or pop country. lol my friends thought i was too weird!

growing up, a lot of the "hood classic" films like juice, boyz n the hood, fresh, and menace 2 society were also banned in my household (and honestly, after seeing meance 2 society for the first time, i don't blame my parents! my child(ren) will not be watching that until they're well into their teens). we also didn't go to the movies a lot because my parents felt it was a waste of money. (my siblings and mother did see malcolm x at the slave theater in brooklyn though. it was fun! and we did go to conventional theaters every once in a while.) my mom also cut the television wires twice during my childhood, so i didn't see movies on television either for a combined 3-4 years of my life! and i actually thank her for this, because i think it allowed me to tap into a lot of my brain power! on the other hand, it also made me have even less in common with lots of kids from my generation...homeschooled and no tv during the formative years? yea. that means very little exposure to pop culture.

by the time i got to high school, i had built up a resistance to lots of films and movies. i HATED to watch most movies because i was so impulsive and excitable, and my thoughts were always moving a mile a minute. i didn't like the idea of sitting still for long periods to watch someone's fictional life unfold when my own thoughts were so entertaining...eh, to me, at least. SOME films that my friends dragged me to dig capture my attention, though...notably eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (ironic title in relation to the point i'm making) and the notebook. yes. sappy "chick flicks." but masterpieces, imho. but for the most part...movies were not popping to me, and i much prefered to be off in a corner reading a book...

and speaking of books...that was the one area that i did feel immersed in growing up. i had been encouraged to read from a very young age, and i friggen LOVED it! still do! after going through my homeschool lessons, i would spend hours on end curled up in some book, especially during the no tv years, and i read about a LOT of different topics. however, even in this area, there are some CLASSIC books relevant to the black experience that i'm ashamed to admit i haven't read yet. so yea..

in college, i got catapulted into circles where nearly EVERYONE had a vast knowledge of music, film, books, etc...it was exciting! but intimidating as well. i absorbed a little bit here and there, tried to insert my strange and random mix of information. sometimes it caught on. usually it didn't.

after college, i got my teaching job...and suddenly i had no life...almost NO exposure to culture by virtue of how i was being worked (to the bone)...i knew something was amiss...i felt sooo stifled but couldn't put my finger on why...i had never actually gotten deeply into my art by this point, but i knew my life had to be much different than it was, and it had to start by me quitting. so, as you know if you've at all read my blog, i quit.

over the past few months of journaling and the past week of meditating, i've learned that my previous work experience was allowed to happen because i had never claimed my art as my own...art and culture was always something i associated with other people...and i think it's part of the reason why i was not really motivated to get into popular expressions of art. i associated that stuff with people not like me...i was just a bookworm who listened to a few songs here and there...i had no real contribution of my own.

i'm in my infancy of claiming myself as an artist. i now know that not only do i have things to pull out from within me, i cannot have a career that does not allow me to nurture and grow that part of myself. that creative part of myself was nearly assasinated by my old job before i was even aware it was there. and that was the truly sad part of working as i was working. i was dying inside.

SN: i love when i start out with an intention to do something simple (in this case, begin a list of books and films) that brings me to many different places. anywho, i'm gonna start that list in a new post cuz this one is already long.

p.s.

i think my fav, multi purpose word is 'shit.'