Roger Porter

June 29, 2011

It’s amazing to me how when you pose a question to a person regarding their musical taste you say; “Hey what kind of music do you like to listen to? Do you like reggae, classical, hip-hop or what?” But when you want to know something about their taste in literature you must first ask; “Hey do you read?”

Everyone in the world likes music but there are only a select few that read. Even the vast majority of people who are literate don’t bother to pick up a book or a newspaper. There are people who go to church every Sunday but have never read the bible. There are people who are passionate members of political parties yet have never bothered to read The Constitution.

So many folks depend on other people to think for them and then they take to the streets in a rage when they discover that their trust has been violated. When they hear about their beloved pastor’s sexual indiscretions, or when they learn that their political leader has been accused of accepting bribes. Of course these people are going to abuse their power. If you treat a man like anything more than a man then he will soon convince himself that he is god.

What would happen if we purchased as many books as we do CD’s? What if the demand for literature was so great that instead of going on I-tunes people downloaded millions of poems for a dollar a piece? What if people turned off the television and read newspapers from all over the world? What if all Christians actually read the bible and held their religion in their head and hearts as opposed to leaving it in the church every Sunday?

If these things were to occur then people would no longer allow themselves to be the cheap disposable tools of demagogues. People would cease praying to man and would finally begin praying to god.

Roger Porter

June 25, 2011

There is a night from my boyhood that reverberates so frequently in my mind that it becomes hard for even me to believe it happened over a quarter century ago. It was a warm night much like tonight and my mother was out in the living room banging away on the typewriter. This was back in the day when my whole family shared one medium-sized bedroom. There was very little personal space but there was a whole lot of love.

At any rate my brother and sister tossed and turned until eventually they fell asleep but on this night I couldn’t, or rather, I refused. I had to be about 3-years-old and I didn’t know much but I could hear my mommy struggling to put her thoughts together. That’s one thing I miss about that old typewriter that we used for way too long; it made the writing process audible.

I could hear way too much space in between the punching of the keys and my mommy had been at it for far longer than was normally the case. So I rolled out of the bed in my old Transformer pajamas with the broken zipper and I went to her. I hugged her as she sat in her reading glasses with a scarf upon her head and a furrowed brow on her face. She looked at me, smiled, and without speaking picked me up and placed me in her lap. She balanced me there as she filled one page up with thought, took it out, and inserted another. I went to sleep right there in between my mommy and her typewriter listening to the divine rhythm of the written word.

Roger Porter

June 24, 2011

I can’t remember the last time I stood in support of new legislation coming from congress so I guess you can say it’s rare but in the case of The Safe Drivers Act of 2011 I can’t help but to thank Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and others who are now publicizing the potential law. This act would set a national standard to prohibit drivers from using handheld mobile devices while driving except for in emergency situations.

Seriously texting while driving is out of control. It’s kind of like a largely unspoken addiction. I’m sure people know the feeling when you’re on the freeway minding your own business and you feel your phone go off in your pocket. You try to ignore it but you can’t resist seeing who the text is from. After all “It might be something important,” you reason, which is stupid because whatever the message is if it were that important the person would have actually called.

So the next thing you know you’re involved in a meaningless textversation about being on the freeway while actually on the freeway placing your life and all of the other drivers’ lives in danger—it’s so dumb! I’m not going to say I’ve never done it but I can say that I’m in the process of making a serious change.

Ever since 18-year-old Kaitlyn Dunaway killed a 2-year-old girl and injured the girl’s mother in Rohnert Park, CA because she was texting while driving I have made a very strong effort to keep my cell phone in the glove compartment anytime I’m behind the wheel. Kaitlyn Dunaway is only a freshman in college and now she’ll have to deal with the burden of knowing she killed a little girl for the rest of her life. And just to think, she was probably sending a text that read; “I’m right up the street.”

Needless to say I’m going to do everything that I can to prevent myself from ever having to be in that situation. If I have to miss some important million dollar text message while I’m on the road to preserve human life then so be it. Texting while driving is a very real problem and I’m glad the federal government is planning to do something about it.

Roger Porter

June 22, 2011

          Recently popular Chicago based rapper Lupe Fiasco stated in an interview that President Barrack Obama is a terrorist. Then a few days later he went on the ultra-conservative political commentary program The O’Reilly Factor to defend his viewpoint. Of course the two of them had it out and I’m sure it made Bill O’Reilly feel a little less racist to have the opportunity to actually defend the president but that’s not the point. The most significant thing about this whole ordeal is that Lupe Fiasco did not back down. He did not apologize, and he did not retire from his career as a rapper.

            It’s sickening to me how in contemporary American society every group wants to force a person to say they’re sorry even when that person obviously isn’t. It bothers me because it only isolates the problem instead of addressing the larger issue.

            For example; comedian Tracy Morgan issued both a written and verbal apology for offensive jokes he made in his stand up routine towards homosexuals. I do believe this will cause people to be more conscious of what they say publicly about gays, however, it does absolutely nothing in terms of making people more accepting of the gay lifestyle. After all isn’t that the issue? I mean don’t we as a society wish to open people’s minds and expand their consciousness or are we content with merely embarrassing the hell out of public figures when they slip up?

            I can assure you that Lupe Fiasco is not the only human-being in the world who thinks President Obama is a terrorist. As a matter of fact there are whole countries full of people who think Obama is a terrorist. The question is what do we do now? Do we organize mass protests in front of Lupe Fiasco concerts and force his label to drop him, or do we try to understand why it is that he considers the president to be a terrorist?

            I say it’s 2011. It’s time to stop being dismissive and start engaging in real hardcore dialogue. And please no more press conferences, and no more apologies.   

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhO7Vt4c2f3b7kDST3

Roger Porter

June 21, 2011

Today was one of those rare days when I get a chance to hang out with my daughter for literally the whole day. She’s out of school for the summer and I’m out of work so things kind of worked out.

After we ran a few errands we had options for leisure time. Last week she asked me if we could go see the movie Cars 2.  I told her I would think about it which I did. I ended up coming to the conclusion that a movie about talking cars sounds lame as hell. I just wasn’t feeling her selection but the idea was cool. I mean there’s nothing wrong with taking in a good film every now and then. I tried to come up with a movie that we could both enjoy and preferably one that was free.

Initially I thought we would have to watch The Lion King for the 75^th time but when I reached for the DVD I saw something even more classic—I saw E.T. on VHS. Yes I still own a copy of The Extra-Terrestrial and yes I still own a VCR. I got a few Klondike bars out of the freezer and it was on and crackin.

This world we live in is so fascinating. Things change so rapidly that you can’t depend on anything anymore. You can’t depend on having a job because the economy is so bad, you can’t count on gas prices staying under $4 per gallon, global warming makes the weather extremely erratic, and because of light pollution you can’t even depend on looking up and seeing the stars at night. That’s why I can’t express how refreshing it was to see the look of enchantment on my daughter’s face during that scene in the movie when those kids were riding their bikes and out of nowhere they took flight and soared over the police barrier.   

It’s crazy because it’s a 30-year-old movie but for her it’s brand new. It’s also crazy that I am a soon to be 30-year-old man but because of my little girl I feel brand new. The power of great art is truly immeasurable. I would imagine that it is only rivaled by the power of love.

Roger Porter

June 20, 2011

When I was a little boy my family used to live on 90^th Avenue in Deep East Oakland, CA USA. It was me, my brother, my sister, my mother, my uncle, my aunty, and my two cousins living in an old pink two-story house. Even though the pink paint was peeling, the structure was falling apart, and we lived in the middle of a notorious ghetto the years I spent there were completely joyous.

Summertime was the best.

I remember going to the corner store and buying 10 cent otter pops and jolly ranchers. I remember water balloon fights. I remember cold Pineapple Crush sodas. I remember girls playing double-dutch. I remember going out on the porch at night, looking straight up into the open expanse and having my older cousin extend his fingers to the sky and point out every constellation.

“That’s Orion’s Belt right there! Oooh and you see that? That’s the Big Dipper.”

There would be shooting stars, twinkling stars, and little stars right next to stars that looked huge by comparison. Now when I look up in the sky above Oakland there only seem t be a scattered few.

They say the reason why is because of something called light pollution. Which basically means that all the new street lights and traffic signals that have been installed over the past 25 years, in addition to all the new light bulbs burning in all the newer homes produce a tremendous accumulative glow which prevents people in an urban metropolis from seeing the stars.

The once electric summer sky is now just black and generic. I miss the constellations. I miss my old house. I miss my innocence. I suppose it should make me feel a little better knowing that even though I can’t see the stars they are still there—but it doesn’t. For if we cannot see them then they are as good as gone.

Roger Porter

June 18, 2011

          Although Father’s Day is supposed to be a day when families get together to honor the men who helped bring them into the world, in Black America it has come to symbolize one of the most hateful days of the calendar year. This is mainly because African-American households have a higher rate of being led by a single woman than every other demographic in the country which causes an enormous amount of resentment towards black men—even from other black men. So on Father’s Day some people tend to be a little bitter.

People say all kinds of derogatory things towards absentee fathers on Facebook, in pulpits, and on the radio. As a matter of fact in 2008 then presidential hopeful Barrack Obama got in on the act as well; “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. Too many fathers are MIA….They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.” Now of course all of this is true, but is it really appropriate to say it on Father’s Day?

Father’s Day 2011 is nearly upon us and it would be amazing if all of Black America could take the time to celebrate a black man who is handling his business instead of taking every opportunity to publicly deride those who are not. For I too once resented my father until I had a child of my own. It is only then that I fully understood everything that he endured to try to stay in our lives. And it is only then that I understood how easy it is for a father’s love to be forever misconstrued and unappreciated.

This year all I want for Father’s Day is positive energy. Let us not only recognize those strong men who are raising their children righteously but let us also make an attempt to understand why so many other men feel the need to remove themselves from the situation.

I know it sounds radical now but in a different era artists actually did this. Here is one of my favorite poems of all time written by the great African-American poet Robert Hayden. It tells the story of a young boy who does not realize the daily sacrifices made by his father until he has grown into a man. It is called Those Winter Sundays.

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Happy Father’s Day to each and every father.

Roger Porter

June 16, 2011

Have you ever seen a woman so beautiful that she makes it seem like the whole world is in black and white and she is the only one in color? I like vibrant women with loud souls and quiet confidence. I like the ones that make you forget, I like the ones that get you high.

Higher than a recession, higher than depression, higher than heroin, higher than coke.

But then maybe that’s the problem. Everyone wants to escape and no one wants to deal with what’s real. Any man can have a beautiful woman on his arm and still be hollow inside. He can still be insecure. He can still be incomplete. Then when the money is low and his swagger is marred by some unforeseen circumstance who can he depend on? Can he depend on himself to get through tough times or will he lean too heavily on his beautiful woman who, unaccustomed to having to support a fully grown man, flees the situation for one that is more stable.

 She looks for a man who is as confident as her old man used to be when they first met. And now her ex-boyfriend is left alone with all of his weaknesses and insufficiencies. His high has come crashing down. His bed has never been colder and he has never felt like less of a man; not even when he was a boy. He wants his pride back. He wants confidence. He wants another taste of euphoria, so he goes out in search of another woman. He never aims to fulfill himself from the inside out. All he wants is a beautiful thing to take home with him. All he wants is another fix. All he wants is to escape.

So where does that leave me? I too have a void but I choose art over flesh. Although the woman is beautiful her radiance tends to blind mortal eyes. Black and white is just fine for me at present. I place my black ink on this white page and share it with the world until my high never comes down.

Roger Porter

June 14, 2011

Last week Mike Tyson one of my favorite boxers of all time was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York. I like Mike not only because of how he used to annihilate people in the ring but because he represents an era when athletes could actually speak their minds. In today’s sports world all of the athletes give interviews like politicians. They tend to overuse the same clichés, and they all speak in the same half removed quasi analytical tone which makes many of them sound extremely disingenuous.

 Now I can understand why this is the case. I mean no one wants to lose millions of dollars worth of endorsements because something they said was misinterpreted (which happens far too often in this hyper-sensitive politically correct era which we live in) but my goodness it would really be refreshing if athletes could feel free to openly express themselves.

            Alas, re-enter Mike Tyson into the American discourse.

In a recent interview when asked what his induction into The Hall of Fame meant Tyson responded; “I’m just real gracious to be involved. This is what I wanted to do all my life… I never even thought about being a human being. I always just wanted to be this big time fighter.” YES! I can always depend on Mike Tyson to give me something thought-provoking to roll around in my brain for a day or two.

For a professional fighter it’s hard to maintain humanity when you spend several hours out of each day learning different strategies as to how to knock another man unconscious. In the beginning of Tyson’s career his handlers had him fight every month in order to keep him out of trouble, which kept him in a perpetual state of training. I can imagine how this could make him just a little insensitive or perhaps even barbaric. It is in this way, as Tyson points out, that fighting makes a person less than a human being.

Another more serious example of the same phenomenon is the failure of so many combat veterans to get re-acclimated to civilian life once their tour of duty is over. They say that in war the first casualty is always innocence. There is no humanity in being a trained killer, and surely one sees no humanity in watching ones comrades be blown to bits by improvised explosive devices or shot to death by enemy fire. Moreover when troops come home it may be a little difficult to deal with a screaming baby or another driver cutting them off on the highway. It may take a while to relearn how to treat others like people.

 As a society we embrace fighting as something necessary to solve disputes. We take pride in our fighters as if they represent us, and in a way they do. But we must be conscious of what any form of physical confrontation does to the mind and of all the ways in which it makes the heart of the individual fighter obdurate.

Whether it’s a career in boxing or a 10 year war, fighting erodes morality and suspends the feelings of compassion, and love for fellow-man. For that instance while one is engaged in combat he has sacrificed all emotions that make him a human being.

You know it can be really stimulating when people aren’t afraid to tell the truth. I wonder if we’ll ever let people do that again.

Roger Porter

June 13, 2011

Today I was doing work around the house while listening to my favorite oldies station when I had a rather ill chain of thought. It started with me appreciated all the outstanding groups that used to put out nothing but hits back in the day like; The Four Tops, The Chi-Lites, and The Temptations. Then I began wondering what groups will be played on oldies stations when my daughter is all grown up. After that I thought about which hip-hop groups would be worthy of having their records played on the radio 20 years from now. Then finally I asked myself who is the greatest hip-hop group of all time. Hmmmm.

I hate to judge artists by saying one is better than the other but it is simply inevitable. Therefore I mulled over the question until the answer became very clear. There is only one group in rap history who put their entire state on the map, changed the lyrical speed of the genre—literally, did songs with both The Notorious BIG and Tupac Shakur, and not only did they rap but they harmonized as well….of course I’m talking about Bone Thugs and Harmony.

In addition to providing a soundtrack to my junior high school experience, Bone-Thugs also made one of the greatest videos of all time with Tha Crossroads. The video is still visually stunning to this day even though the once cutting edge special effects are now over 15 years old (can you believe it?).

So if any rap group deserves to be played on oldies station 2 decades from now it’s the one consisting of Lazy, Crazy, Busy, Wish, and Flesh. Oh yeah and Cleveland’s definitely in the house, lol.