The Afro-Punk Festival is the ultimate celebration of
freedom. Held in Brooklyn, the goal of the fest was to create a space for Black people needing to express their
life experiences through Punk, Rock, and Alternative music. It now
attracts Blacks world-wide and embraces Folk, Soul/R&B, Blues, Jazz, and
Hip-Hop. But, make no mistake, narrow definitions and small-mindedness is
strictly prohibited.
Most impressive to me, Afro-Punk has become the introductory stage for many cutting-edge musical acts like Memphis' young "Bluesician," Valerie June and Nashville's sensual songstress, Kandace
Springs. For music and culture enthusiasts, this is a "gotta be
there" event.
This year, the two-day fest will be held on August 23-24th. See ya in Brooklyn!!
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
So begins the Robert Herrick poem, To the Virgins: To Make Much of Time. So also began my fascination with the great Robin Williams as he played Professor Keating in the classic movie Dead Poets Society.
The movie is a "coming of age" piece in which an elite but awkward group of students attending a stodgy prep school meet their new English Professor who encougages them to "seize the day"... to walk to the beat of a differnet drummer....to dare to be an individual...to defy tradition and convention. With the opening lines of this poem, Keating (Williams) begins to transform the lives of his students and greatly inspire me as well.
Seizing! Daring! Defying! Walking Differently! Williams did all those things...and that is why we loved him!! Yes. Zany, frenetic comedic flourishes may have been his hallmark. But, if the eyes are windows to the soul, Williams' eyes spoke to his incomparable humanity, his profound vulnerablity, his dance with despair, his trysts with tragedy, his walk with joy through a world of sadness. As Mary J. Blige sang, "If you could look in my eyes and see what I've seen."
For better or worse, most of us will never experience the manic flights of his comedic genius or suffer the depths of his depressive despair. So, judge not! Who among us know with certainty how we might handle addiction, fame and fortune (and all its trappings), or a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease?
SUICIDE!!
Few have been personally spared by this parodoxical act of final resolution. A dear friend of mine chose this as a final act. Still, suicide remains for me "a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." And, perhaps there is no key. Maybe the herculean feat of balancing Triumph and Tragedy while performing for an adoring crowd finally got the best of Robin. Or, was it the lonely expanse of time away from the crowd that beckoned the "reaper" to Williams' abode?
So, is this the dissonant, inharmonius end? Is it really all that surprising? Robin Williams was always Daring...Defying...Walking Differently...Seizing the Day..and, that is why we loved him!!
In the end, is it really inharmonius? Or, is it just dissonant...hard to deal with? In music theory, it's dissonance that gives music its beauty and movement....without dissonance, music becomes lifeless, hopeless and static. Williams' life was anything but lifeless, hopeless, and static. Perhaps, it ended on the most harmonious of notes....and, as such, Williams "seized" his final day.
Robin Williams was a comedic genius, but above all he was a great humanitarian. I will always remember him as he was in this heartrending scene from the movie Good Will Hunting:
Once upon a time in America, there lived a young Black man who embodied the best of W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington...Martin Luther King and Malcolm X...Barack Obama and Cornel West. He graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1960 with varied academic scholarship offers from prestigious "white" universities. That notwithstanding, he chose to attend Howard University studying Sarte, Camus, and Santayana while graduating "with honors" and a degree in Philosophy. He was a firebrand founding member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC or "snick"), and became the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.
Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure) addressed the ambiguously complex and murky spaces existing between violence and non-violence..."Black power" and Black acquiessence...mainstream acceptance and radical militancy...justice and peace.
He was a brilliant scholar and a charismatic grassroots activist. Carmichael is no longer here to lend his hand in the struggle, but his wise words linger presciently in the aftermath of Michael Brown's apparent execution at the hands of a Missouri police officer, and the brutal police response to mostly Black citizens exercising their constitutional right to free speech and to peaceably assemble.
From the grave, Stokely speaks to Ferguson, Missouri:
"We were aware of the fact that death walks hand in hand with struggle."
"I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place."
"There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience."
"The secret of life is to have no fear; it's the only way to function."
"We had no more courage than Harriet Tubman or Marcus Garvey had in their times. We just had a more vulnerable enemy."
Has the rabid right-wing, militarized law-and-order philosophy ushered in by Richard Nixon and George Wallace, perfected by Ronald Reagan and Lee Atwater, and fondly embraced by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, once again rendered the "enemy" vulnerable? We'll see.
Until then, I'm with the family of Michael Brown, the city of Ferguson, and The Roots channeling our forefathers, singing "Can't Turn Me Around."
Today, President Obama launched a series of military missions
in Iraq aimed at providing humanitarian aid to thousands threatened with
genocide in that broken country. A country broken, I might add, by ill-advised neo-con
inspired American intervention. This humanitarian effort may also lead to more
malicious, although limited, military action to stem the tide of an ISIS led
rampage in the country.
This glimmer of international benevolence is occurring while
Putin’s Russia turns up the volume on its aggression in the Ukraine, Hamas and
Netanyahu pumps up the usual Israeli/Palestinian strife in Gaza, war-like gang
violence rages in Central America sending thousands of children fleeing into the arms of US Border Patrol Agents, and the Ebola virus silently
stampedes through West Africa like General Sherman through Georgia.
All this…after spending over a decade fighting and dying in
Iraq and Afghanistan!!The President’s
foreign policy plate is full, to say the least. I trust his judgment and I buy
his philosophy of exercising “smart power” and only fighting "smart wars." But I,
like Bill Withers, will remember even the "smart wars" (in which there is death
and destruction) like I remember ALL wars…”as one big drag!”
There seems to be a common thread running through all
wars…the death, of course...but also the pain and suffering it inflicts upon the innocents who fight and survive them…not to mention the horrors endured by those who are simply in the way.
It reminds me of a profoundly thought-provoking song
written by Bill Withers in the 70s toward the end of the Vietnam War. He told the story of a soldier he met who,
returning from the war, had lost the use of one arm.The soldier poignantly stated that he was
doing okay, “getting shot atdidn’t bother him, it was getting shot that shook
him up.” That song was entitled, “I Can’t Write Left-Handed,”
and it should serve as a reminder to young and old that war is not a video game…and that American soldiers bleed just like enemy soldiers do.
John Legend and The Roots smashed a remake of the Withers
classic, and I’m sure Withers is proud.Check
it out:
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