Roger Porter

July 20, 2011

The sunlight looks spectacular on a day like this but it’s hard to enjoy it when you’re overwhelmed with work. There is always work that needs to be done but is that any real reason to be cooped up in the house. On the other hand the sun will always be in the sky so is that any excuse for me to completely disregard my responsibilities. And thus I have just illustrated my current affliction in microcosm. Damn this cursed confusion! On days like this I swear I wish I could take a vacation from myself.

In my youthful cockiness I just knew I’d have it all figured out by this age, now I find myself pondering the questions; “Does anyone really have things all figured out? Is that even possible?” I can recall a few summers ago when I had a job as the token black man at a Jewish summer camp (very enlightening experience by the way) and I came across this guy while taking the campers to a local beach for a dip. He was hanging out with this dude who lives on my block and I noticed he was with his daughter who was around the same age as my little girl. So we started to chat a little bit. 

The guy was really chill both in appearance and in his mannerisms. He had a white tank top on, his dreads flowed well past his shoulders and he was barefoot of course (as we were at a beach). He said to me, “Oh so you work at a camp I work at a camp too.” And I was like right on, you know just kind of nodding my head. Then he paused for a while and was like, “Yeah that’s my wife over there” as he pointed to a blonde haired woman in a black bathing suit. Once again I just nodded my head as I scanned the water to make sure the kids weren’t trying to drown each other.

Then he paused for another good while as if he was taking a long drag from an invisible blunt.  Suddenly he came back with “Yeah me  my wife and my daughter just chilling you know.  Everything is gravy. My life is on straight up cruise control.” With that he took his tank top off and held his little girls hand as she waded slowly into the water.

Cruise Control? I thought. This fool works at a summer camp and he’s talking about his life is on cruise control. Then I looked a little deeper into what he said. Perhaps the cruise control that he was referring to had nothing to do with occupation or even education for that matter. Perhaps it’s all about finding that ever-elusive inner peace. But I’m like damn can I truly be at peace if I’m broke as hell and struggling to pay the rent. According to the man with the dread locks the answer is yes.

Honestly it all makes a lot of sense. It took me a few years to understand but I really respect where that guy was coming from.  When you take the time to break it down you’ll find that even people who say they don’t care about the money really care about the money. Like me for example, LOL. It’s not that I want to be ballin out of control with a $10,000 pinky ring but I would like to earn enough to prevent my brain from automatically going into panic mode at the end of every month.

 It was wild because there I was presented with this mystery dude in the exact same situation as me and he seemed to be completely happy. This dude was actually on cruise control while I was in the middle of accruing an obscene amount of debt in graduate school. What did he know about life that I didn’t? What had he discovered? What spiritual code had he cracked?

But alas I have come to accept that I am not the man with the dreadlocks. The speed at which he presses the cruise control button is completely different from the speed that I feel comfortable doing so. And at that point in time I was nowhere close. To make matters worse I’m not sure if I’m any closer right now.

Maybe it’s like love and when I’m ready to go into cruise control mode I’ll just know, or maybe I’m just eternally restless and that moment will never come, or maybe that guy was lying. For all I know he committed himself into a mental institution that very night. Really I have no idea what happened to him but it doesn’t matter because my life is not about him. It’s about me and what I’m going to do.

 I would like to find a little inner peace though. I guess all I can do right now, however, is to keep searching.    

So stay tuned.

Roger Porter

July 18, 2011

I wonder about the dead sometimes. At an indecent hour like this I am up wondering if all those whom we have lost ever think about us. For example; when a memory of them runs through our mind did they place it there, or are they capable of conjuring up memories of us simultaneously.

I just saw a video of a 20-year-old Tupac Shakur. He was a defiant, articulate, and dangerous young black man. He was not unlike a few of my good friends who I lost in my early 20’s. It would really be amazing if they were in a place where they could bump into one another and have a real exchange. Assuming autographs are of no value in the afterlife they would be inclined to talk about something really profound like how to look after all of us on Earth, or where they went wrong in life. Better yet, maybe they are completely at peace.

Peace would be something that may take them half of eternity to adjust to. For while they were here all they knew was rage and unrest. It’s sad that they left this world so young but I hope they know that they had an enormous impact on my life. I write for them, I fight for them, and I live for them.

Roger Porter

July 17, 2011

It’s a crazy feeling when you’re dead tired but can’t manage to go to sleep. It feels like you’re suspended in life. As if you are walking on a tightrope between consciousness and fantasy. Sometimes it takes an extreme amount of focus just to get there. Just to block everything out for long enough to slip away.

I imagine if we could actually see the Promised Land— after all those speeches, sermons, and biblical verses that have made us believe in its existence— then we would be too afraid to actually set foot on it. I fear that we have fallen in the love with purchasing the dream being sold to us rather than loving the dream itself.

We like the big man with the big voice who attracts the large crowds. We like to be moved by fancy words, by eloquent rhetoric, and a glowing smile. We can’t resist the charm of that charismatic person. We can’t help but to visualize what he tells us and we can’t help but to be swept up in fantasy when we hear him preach. So of course we pay the man for his troubles. We pay for the show. We pay handsomely for the dream yet our sleepy eyes are still open and we are still very much awake.

We still trust those people who seem to be omnipresent. Those people who worship the cameras. Those people who have been slowly raping the movement since our most brilliant luminary was slain. We still follow these individuals; however, if they were actually a threat to injustice then they would have been murdered a long time ago. The last time I saw one of these men on television I was with my daughter. She pointed to the screen and asked; “Who is that daddy?”  To which I responded; “That’s a clown with no make-up.”

In our hearts we are pure but in practice we are shallow. There is more to life than merely leading or following. Individuality still exists. There can still be honesty and oh yes there is love. If we learned to love ourselves then there is no way we would be conned by these wretched people. We would create our own dream and we would live in it forever right here on Earth.

Amen.

Roger Porter

July 15, 2011

I love how the sky looks at dusk. When it’s orange, red, magenta, crimson, yellow; ill-defined. It forces me to look up even when I’m feeling down. When the world appears to be so drab and hopeless it’s always good to be taken aback by the beauty of something natural. Like naturally kinky hair, and naturally full lips, it all has the same effect on me. It’s wild how I never know I need inspiration until I’m inspired.  Then I become aware of the haze I was in before some pretty thing made my vision clear.

It makes me wonder if people in the dark ages knew they were living in darkness or were they just happy to be alive. I am happy to be alive but I do spend a considerable amount of time thinking about how this current era will be classified in the decades to come.

 It would be nice to hear an outside opinion sometime. I would appreciate having the opportunity to hear a dissenting voice without being told to fear it, or to sit idly by while others are ordered to kill it.

There are millions of gorgeous things in this world. There are even a lot of righteous people wandering about the earth who go unrecognized and taken for granted. It’s sad that I can become so engrossed in negativity that I can’t receive the most splendid gift that has ever been given.

Roger Porter

July 13, 2011

It’s kind of sick how we view our artists. Sometimes it seems like the more troubled they are the harder we fall in love with them. I’m no exception. There is something inside of me that disallows me to truly feel an artist unless I can hear some pain in his or her voice. This is the same thing that prevents me from appreciating the music of Luther Vandross because every time I hear one of his songs I can visualize him smiling. It’s sad I know but I think it’s the Christianity in me. After all don’t we love Jesus so much because he suffered on the cross for us?

At any rate there is a poet whose literary voice I passionately adore. I have been enraptured by the works of Etheridge Knight for nearly all of my adult life. I would like to think that it has nothing to do with the fact that he served several years in prison or had a very serious heroin addiction but I know it does. Just like when I first found out how many times 50 cent had been shot it made me want to buy his record. It’s a shame that I can get caught up in something so petty, however, I suppose it’s similar to the Blues. I mean don’t you have to have the Blues to be a real Blues singer?

Either way Etheridge Knight was an exceptional poet who wasn’t afraid to cry and bleed in front of his audience. Here is one of his many masterpieces:

By Etheridge Knight1931–1991 Etheridge Knight

Roger Porter

July 11, 2011

            A very good friend of mine once told me “We’re not only in an economic downturn but we’re in a recession of the arts as well.” Indeed we are living in a very peculiar time. I say this because normally times of economic woe bring out the very best in terms of music, film, and literature. A prime example of this would be American Slave Narratives and Jazz, but today it’s not happening.

             In this era of complete corporate control over the music that is sold and the books that are published we never hear of a new artist breaking the mold to say something different. As a matter of fact if one were to have to depend on contemporary art as a means for determining what is going on in the world then one wouldn’t even know there was a recession going on at all.

            Even a respected publication such as USA Today has published articles about living in “Post Recession America.” I understand the need for the government to prevent people from panicking as they did the day the stock market crashed in 1929; however, I think it would do some good to allow people to express the truth in some capacity.

            It would be foolish to think that you could miraculously “cure” a drug addict by publicly declaring that his addiction is over. It would be equally absurd for someone to try to bring a person out of a deep depression by acting like they don’t notice it and never speaking about it.

            So let’s be real America. Families are still losing their homes, masses of people are unemployed, and there aren’t nearly enough jobs being created to noticeably improve the economic situation. In short the recession is still very much alive. But it’s OK, don’t do anything rash. Instead write a poem, sing a song, or paint a picture about it. For although ignoring an issue will never make it go away the healing powers of art have been proven time and time again.

Roger Porter

July 8, 2011

What do we call those people who aren’t afraid to embrace their own solitude? How do we refer to those of us who don’t care to run with a click? I do believe we consider these people to be quite strange for the most part. However I always loved the individual who is truly an individual so I guess that makes me weird as well but so what.

 I think that the woman who can stand alone is far more beautiful than the woman who stands out in a crowd. I lust for she who loves herself with an overwhelming passion and only needs me there to help. Or at least that’s what I fantasize about. In reality I don’t know if I could handle her because in reality I am a man and thus cursed with certain oppressive characteristics.

I wonder how much of an individual can any woman be in a committed relationship? As a child I remember watching the strongest women I knew yield to their boyfriends; and not because they were forced to or because they were abused but rather because that’s how they were programmed to behave. I watched them give up the last word and held in my laugh as they acted like they couldn’t do things that I had seen them do a thousand times before—things like mow the lawn or pump the gas—so they could get their boyfriends to do it.

Even as a child I figured out that it was all an act but the men they dated never caught on. They thought these women were naturally submissive and dumb so they treated them as such. I suppose that’s all courtship is, it’s like an erotic masquerade.

What will happen when the masks come off and it is revealed that he is weak and she is a masterful thinker? What will become of the relationship then?

That’s why I like the ones who stand alone because they refuse to hide their strength. When she is by herself she is effectively placing all of her righteous attributes on display.

Roger Porter

July 7, 2011

                We all have our things I guess. No matter how strong we are we all have those things that make us weak. I get caught up sometimes. I get caught up in things that are no good for me. I find myself lost in the company of negative people who have never learned to love themselves, so how could they possibly love me. Each time I have received multiple warnings that these people were shady but I never paid attention. For some reason I always want to give human-beings the benefit of the doubt and I’m always the one who pays for it. It’s a very wretched feeling to continue to have faith in something that can only let you down. Pretty soon you realize that the only sure-fire way to avoid betrayal is to not believe in anything at all.

             Now I wonder is it worth it?

Roger Porter

July 5, 2011

I think fondly of pain sometimes; about the dynamics of the beast, the irony, and the permanence of it all. It’s so rare that a person admits to liking pain yet we never forget a memory in which we are hurt. In a very strange way pain makes a moment real. Pain elevates a mundane day into one that we violently embrace in our minds for the rest of our natural lives.

I’ve found myself at gatherings surrounded by men whose stories led to collective laughter, and then that collective laughter grows into complete openness. The next thing you know everyone is taking turns talking about the first time they were caught, the first time they were arrested, the first time they went to jail, or when they finally graduated to the penitentiary.

 No matter how hard a person is grinning when they tell a story like this you can always see right through it. The pain that they felt during the moment of their apprehension is always conveyed to the listener. And it doesn’t matter how big the orator is or how intimidating he truly wants to be, in my eyes he always turns into a boy when he speaks of pain. When he revisit that fear, those tears, and that disappointment.  Yet this is the same man who always finds a way to be re-incarcerated.

This is the man who violates parole and probation. This is the man who appears to live his life so recklessly on the outside so he’ll have some good stories to tell the other inmates when he gets back home to confinement. This is the man whose world is literally turned inside out. What I mean by this is he has been so severely institutionalized that he believes prison is the only place where he can be free. Prison is the only place that he has ever really adjusted to. It’s the one place in his world where he does not feel so out-of-place.

I supposed that even pain can be normalized. But is it really normalized if it still hurts? Maybe pain is like some kind of drug and these men who keep bumping their heads against the walls of their own limitations are trying to recapture their first high. Or maybe these people just really like pain but they can’t admit it to themselves.

Roger Porter

July 1, 2011

         At this point in my life I haven’t been able to travel as much I would have liked to. As a matter of fact I’ve only left the country one time and that was a brief trip across the Mexican border when I was 9-years-old. So I try to compensate this by asking the well-traveled people I know a whole lot of questions and watching a whole lot of foreign films. Well actually I don’t watch a multitude of foreign films but the ones that I like I watch repeatedly. Like Biutiful starring Javier Bardem.

            I paid to see this Academy Award nominated Spanish movie in the theater twice—despite the recession. The story is compelling, the acting is great, and the cinematography is astounding but what I really like about this movie are the subscripts. Subscripts add an extra dimension to a film. I even love when the translations disappear too quickly from the bottom of the screen and I am forced to rely on the tone of the characters voices and the expressions on their faces to determine the nature of the dialogue.

            It is through a foreign film that I first became enraptured by the Portuguese language. I swear to you that I have watched City of God at least 75 times. I think it may be the best gangster story ever told. What I find most fascinating about films from outside of the United States is they tend to do a much better job of telling a story from multiple perspectives.

         City of God is told from every imaginable angle and we get an accurate and realistic sense of every character’s voice. This is similar to another one of my favorite films called Amelie which is from France. In this movie there is a scene when the audience is even given insight into the thoughts of a cat.

            Sooner or later I’m going to pack my bags and leave Oakland for Rio de Janeiro or Paris or Madrid or Mumbai but until then I’ll have to depend on my beloved movie collection and experience those exotic places by watching my favorite foreign movies over and over again.