WRITE CLUB - Belknap, Black, 1/31/12

It will not escape your notice that I am white.

But I am not SO white that you need to land on the “H.“ White. So while it might be true that I am a white man, I am not The White Man.

Having grown up in Massachusetts, though, I have spent a lot of time NEAR The White Man. I grew up in a town called Amherst, named after Lord Jeffrey Amherst, a commander of British forces during the French and Indian War. A commander who authorized the delivery of blankets infected with smallpox to the Ottawa tribe in 1763.

Which is what The White Man calls innovation. Because in the mind of The White Man, there are two kinds of people:  Human. And Non-White.

Let me emphasize again: while I am inescapably a white man, I am not, nor shall I ever be The White Man.

Not only would I never volunteer, but I am prevented from ever becoming The White Man. I do not come from money.

It is Class and Capital that flavor the Goulash of Whiteness. I have neither. Consulting The White Man Glossary, we find that Class and Capital are what you and I would Oppression and Thievery.

It is The White Man who commits genocide wherever he makes landfall as surely as it is The White Man who starts a fucking lacrosse program at every school his children colonize. The White Man is the cause of Eric fucking Clapton, John fucking Mayer, Frank fucking Zappa, and all annoying manner of guitar-based beating off.

The White Man owns every basketball team, and he can watch gravity-defying miracles performed on the court far below his skybox, and still speak of a bygone era of the more “brainy” play of Bob Cousy and Jerry West.

The White Man sells cheap handguns to the desperate and then blames rap lyrics and baggy pants for all the toddlers getting shot down. The White Man blames hiphop for his crimes AND he’ll send the black reporter to cover the Senate hearings with a straight fucking face.

The White Man is available in three flavors: banker, date rapist, and date rapist banker, or serial date rapist. Each of these flavors answers to the name “Job Creator.” Newt Gingrich. Perfect example. You know why his hair’s that way? His skin is insufficient to contain the full measure of his whiteness.

The White Man appropriates every bit of culture on the planet, leaches all the cool out it, and sells it back to you. The fact that I can say the word “jazz” and anybody on the face of the Earth will see the Jeri-curl head of Kenny fucking G. blowing on that pin-dick sax of his is a testament to the rapacious and culture-killing power of The White Man.

My condemning The White Man this is NOT white guilt. LIBERAL guilt compels me to worry that I’m inadvertently perpetuating a patrician and racialized narrative of oppression by displacing the brown-skinned peoples who are its rightful inheritors. WHITE guilt leads to handguns with a seventeen-shot clip because The White Man is always in danger of being attacked by a mob seeking justice, for he is a whore-hearted demon cock.

If you suspect for a second that The White Man does not make everything worse wherever He goes, that The White Man cannot take a horrifying situation and render it even more distressing and awful and unfair, you need look no further than the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. This is from NPR.org – another way you can tell I’m a lowercase white man:

“When the quake struck at 4:53 p.m. on Jan. 12, Signal FM was playing ‘Hotel California.’ The Earth groaned and the building shuddered, but just before the DJ ran out, he had the presence of mind to hit the "repeat" button.

So for the first 30 minutes of Port-au-Prince's descent into hell, the only thing you could hear on the radio was the Eagles' standard — over and over and over.”

Now. A half hour in the immediate wake of a deadly earthquake is a horrible way to spend your time. But a half hour in the immediate wake of a deadly earthquake with “Hotel California” playing on fucking repeat is an unendurable hellscape from which light and hope cannot escape. It’s a fucking White Hole that extinguishes everything good and true.

I’d sooner be crushed under the rubble of my collapsing house than listen to the goddamn Eagles – because a rubble-crushing is mercifully swift; and even if it’s not, I’d rather stare at my own jagged fucking femur piercing my pant leg for EIGHT HOURS before I bleed out than listen to eight fucking seconds of “Hotel California.” Like any right-thinking person.

I know I’m supposed to have Black in this bout, and have spent most of my time running down White, but listen: everybody’s horrible. It’s just that the White Man is clearly the MOST horrible. By a country fucking mile.

Black people: stop shooting each other. You are not Dick Cheney and therefore cannot avoid prosecution and have your victim, whom you shot in his fucking face, apologize to you publically.

Black men: stick around and parent your children. If you do, then MAYBE they’ll stop shooting everybody.

Black people: quit it with the weird made-up names. Can we please just agree that the maximum number of times the letter “Q” appears in a name is not to exceed one?  

That’s about it. No more shooting, dads don’t be dirtbags, and ease up on the weird names. But even if you DON’T do any of that, you’ll never be as bad as The White Man.

Not just famous, ZULKEY famous

Pal Claire Zulkey kindly interviews Smellcrap for her blog. She attempts to pick a fight between WRITE CLUB and Literary Death Match. I am fine with this.

http://www.wbez.org/blog/claire-zulkey/2011-12-02/ian-belknap-interview-94536

WRITE CLUB - Belknap, No Thanks, 11/29/11

Note: the Edward here referenced is the fearsome Edward Thomas-Herrera, my opponent in this bout.

Long time ago, a friend told me this story. It is a story of thanks, and is therefore unusual.

A Russian guy – this was back in Iron Curtain times, so he was a Soviet guy – comes to the United States. He defected I guess, so it was like Moscow on the Hudson, but free of Robin Williams, so it’s a FAR less annoying story. Guy arrives at this bustling airport – LaGuardia, maybe, or JFK – doesn’t matter. The guy knows nobody in the U.S. He has no people here. There’s nobody to come collect him and shepherd him through this disorienting new world he’s been disgorged into. So he’s staggering through this garish airport and there’s a throng of strangers and signs he can’t read and announcements he can’t understand. The guy is at a loss – he feels totally dislocated. He feels abandoned and adrift. Plus, he’s hungry. Long flight from – I don’t know, let’s say Minsk. And all this Soviet guy knows is like black bread and vodka, so American shopping is WAY more than he’s equipped for. So the guy goes to a kiosk and he is TOTALLY overwhelmed by the neon Doritos and Zagnut bars and those orange circus peanuts – guy has no idea what any of this shit is. But then he sees little plastic cups of yogurt. Guy knows yogurt. So he buys a thing of yogurt and he slumps into a bench, and he’s spooning this yogurt into his mouth that’s slackened by the overkill all around him.

He gets to the bottom of the container. And there is this miraculous red jelly – this sweet, summery little dollop of fruity goodness at the bottom of the cup. The guy has only known plain yogurt all his life. He has ONLY had lumpy, sour gulag yogurt. And he comes to America and gets served this mild, textureless cup of uniform excellence that has this sweet buried treasure of unaccountable deliciousness. The guy is beaming.

Which is sensational and marvelous and terrific. Of course it is.

But the reason this story stuck with me for like 15 years? It is an anomaly. We have all had these moments that fleetingly imbue the world with more luster and quicken its pulse. The reason we notice these moments is that they stand in such stark contrast to the fifty-six thousand shitty moments that surround it on all sides.

For every INSTANT of “Wow, that’s amazing” there are HOURS of “Fuck this – are you kidding me?”

For every buoyant moment where your load is lightened and the way seems clear, there can be whole days where you want to fill a pillowcase with canned sardines and beat the piss out of everyone in your path. For every moment where you feel certain that we live in a benevolent universe guided by a Divine hand, there can be months where you wanna drown yourself in a toilet full of Mitch McConnell’s turtle shit. For every moment where the light of reason seems it won’t be snuffed out, there can be whole years where the caterwauling mob threatens to consign us all to a future where we live in squalid and sulphurous underground burrows and we eat uncooked grubs by the light a guttering fire fueled with the few final pages of the last remaining books.

Look, I’m not Bartleby the Scrivener up here – I would not ALWAYS prefer not to. But my bullshit detector is exquisitely sensitive, and hair-triggered, so it does not permit me to say “Thanks” wherever “Fuck, No” is required.

Those moments of thanks? Those moments are easy. Those moments are cake. They require nothing of you.

You know who says “No Thanks”? The 99%. And Woody Guthrie. And Tom Joad, and Henry Fonda AS Tom Joad. Scout and Atticus Finch. Robin Hood. And George fucking Bailey. Plus, R2D2, and two of the Ghostbusters.

Tellya who else says “No Thanks” – Tiananmen Square Guy.

So if you’re pleased with the way things are going, if your allegiance is with Mr. Burns and Darth Vader and Mr. Potter and the Koch brothers Cthulu, you go right on ahead – vote “Thanks”. Cause in YOUR world, things are aces. But if you want to be an advocate for positive change in this world, you have to vote “No Thanks” – you HAVE to.

I’m with Dan Savage. I want it to get better. Edward doesn’t. Edward likes things just as they are. Edward LIKES intolerance and hatred. He’s crazy for it – can’t get enough of the stuff.

And you know who else would vote “Thanks”? Anthrax. And that dew drop of snot that’ll be hanging off the end of your nose till next April.

When you get to the front of the chow line and they ladle out the stew full of snouts and hooves, you say “No Thanks”.

When you work hard and play by the rules, and they still bulldoze your house while you’re in there brushing your teeth, you say “No Thanks”.

When your daughter is possessed and her head’s spinning around and she’s puking all over the place, you say “No, sir, Mr. Devil – No Thanks”. Or maybe you’re PRO-Satan, like my opponent here.

The majority of moments – the moments that bore and exasperate you, the moments that vex and baffle you, the moments of defeat and outrage, the moments that test you – these are the moments that teach you what you’re made of.

It may seem counterintuitive – perverse, even – to ask that you find in favor of the many millions of moments that make you say Screw This, Up Yours, No Thanks. But THESE are the moments that stitch together the quilt of human progress. If you wish to find for complacency, by all means, vote “Thanks”. But do so with OPEN EYES, friends, because “Thanks” is Ann Coulter having demon babies with Rick Perry. I don’t know about you – but I say “No Thanks” to those demon babies. I hope you will, too. If anybody needs us, we’ll be over here, saying “No Thanks” with Jon Stewart and Obi Wan Kenobi.

Belknap, WRITE CLUB - Sacred

This was a rightfully defeated (by the killacious Jill Summers) piece in need of three more drafts. But as it was not presented with the benefit of three more drafts - I present it here for you to ignore.

The search for the sacred.

Was it not the Buddha that said:

[SNAP FINGERS INSISTENTLY]

HEY! Dickface! Focus up!

Could have been Ghandi. And I might be paraphrasing.

Anyway. Point is – the sacred is elusive.

Like most of us, whenever I close my eyes to reflect on the sacred, I see Oprah’s face. Oprah’s giant, disembodied face. For me, it’s always red carpet Oprah. I never get velour tracksuit Oprah who’s talking about her va-jay-jay. I get the Oprah with the weirdly appealing coppery lipstick.

The hovering, gigantic face of an overfed baby that’s also like your mom who you kind of want to sleep with a little bit. It’s really complicated.

But Oprah’s giant face is only a BOOKMARK for the sacred. It is a MNEMONIC for your soul – like if your inner life had Outlook on it and you get that little alert – BING – that it’s time to reflect. That’s Oprah’s face.

The sacred is at the bottom of a well within you. Oprah’s shiny disembodied head is the boulder you have to roll off to get to it.

After you muscle aside the towering spectral head of Oprah, though, you still gotta break through your religious training – the more you got, the tougher it is. This phase is comparatively easy for me, since I was a practicing Catholic until I was like nine. Then my Dad took off and we quit going to Mass immediately. And I remain un-priest-raped to this day.

So for me, there’s this line of scrimmage with like Jesus and the Pope and a bunch of Cardinals and Bishops. And you juke left around Jesus, whose footwork sucks, and you stiff-arm the Pope, who can’t take a fucking hit, and you got a wide open lane because the Catholic backfield CANNOT READ THE PLAY.

Where was I? Ah. Yes. The sacred.

Seeing as I am secular, I had to really dig for a notion of the sacred I could get behind. Leave it to your old pal the Oxford English Dictionary to do just that:

Blahblahblah “Eucharistic”, blahblahblah “deity”, blahblahblah “laws and teachings of religion”, blahblahblah “venerable” – AH! HERE! Meaning FOUR, Subsection C:

“4.) Regarded with or entitled to respect or reverence similar to that which attaches to holy things. C.) in sarcastic use.”

Listen: nothing is sacred. Nothing. Not your texts. Not your knowledge. Not your amulet. Not your heart. Not your ibis. Not your scrolls. Not your journey. Not your cow. Nothing.

All of it. As far the eye can see. You know what it is? Fair game.

I regard as sacred my right to make fun of anything. ANYTHING.

A lot of you probably hear me say that and go:

REALLY? Anything? Really? Well so, OK, Smarty Pants: what about your OWN stuff? What about your OWN life? Is THAT fair game? Hm? Because I mean that’s where the rubber meets the road, isn’t it?

Two things:

Look: ridicule has value. Scorn has an evolutionary basis – if we are in the same band of hunter-gatherers, and you are a do-nothing shit heel, you will arouse our scorn and we will banish or kill you. Our tribe is made stronger.

Here’s why making fun is sacred to me:

Ridicule – I’m not talking abuse, here, for I am no frat boy – I’m talking about thoughtful, well-intended ridicule. Ridicule – good ridicule, ridicule that is well crafted and is fueled by purpose, matters a great deal and aids human advancement.

And you’re like:

What?

Shut your face and quit interrupting.

Ridicule aids human advancement. Ridicule dismantles assumption. Ridicule chips away at orthodoxy.

Ridicule stands in the forest of ignorance and habit and BURNS THAT FUCKER DOWN. And ridicule torches the woodland creatures of The Popular, for while they may be cute, they are dumb as a bag of socks and destructive. And ridicule sets dynamite in all the cabins of complacency and custom, which may be cozy but are filled with rot. And ridicule bulldozes the ashes of this forest – and here is the value of ridicule. HERE is why ridicule matters and how ridicule aids human advancement.

The entire POINT of ridicule – the thing that renders it sacred – is this:

When you have burned down the forest of convention and have killed the livestock of precedent; once you have detonated the cabins of the zeitgeist, then you must keep going.

You must turn your ridicule inward. You must become your target. You must be merciless. You must root out in yourself all that which you despise in others. You must castigate yourself for your hypocrisy. You must find and eliminate your blind spots and habits of mind. You must level your structures of vanity and appetite. You must jettison the dumb and corrupt. You must crush the stupid and repetitive. 

For it is only by laying waste to the self that any of us can hope to make any kind of progress. And is not the sacrament of ridicule the surest way to lay waste to the self?

Ian Belknap - WRITE CLUB - Fall, 1/28/11

WRITE CLUB - Ian Belknap - Fall, 1/28/11 from Ian Belknap on Vimeo.