Gotham City Soul

Look here, I'm happy to be honest about what kind of job I think our leaders are doing, never hesitated to get on my soap box. But all this whining about disillusionment with Obama is really starting to get on my nerves. I don't know what people expected when they voted for him, but I don't think it was for him to spend all of his attention, time, energy, and brain power on special interests, not the way some folks would like. It's so unbelievably selfish to feed him to the wolves because he's not doing what you want him to do. Would we rather have had the alternative in office? And if you didn't want either, be angry at our two-party system and the way we do politics and do something to change it. Everybody is so full of criticism, but I have not heard one, not one viable solution to anything (believe it or not oilman T. Boone Pickens is really the only person who has made any sense to me at all, him and a few others. I'm sure somebody is going to write i...

It was a blow to hear that Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest yesterday, and the remembrances and analyses (some of which are neither desired or required) are too many to count. I can't think of one friend under the age of 60 who can't sing at least one line from any Jackson 5 or Michael Jackson tune. I have to admit that I was much more sad than I thought I would be—after all, I didn't know him personally. But when I think of how he touched so many people's worlds with his music—my dear friend John, who is a deejay, told me that he would never be able to count how many times he played MJ's music at weddings and birthdays and sweet sixteens for people of all races, cultures, religions, and socioeconomic levels, that Michael made his career possible in a big way. At 7 I was going to marry Michael (this was in 1969 when the Jackson 5 came out with "I Want You Back"). I declared it just as all my fellow female classmates declared that they wer...

I've been away since February, mostly because I am now working regularly on the blog for the magazine I work for, American Legacy. When I can balance writing for the both that blog and this, I will be back!

It's black history month, six days in, and not a morsel from Gotham City Soul. Now that I'll be writing a blog for my magazine's Web site, I'm more inclined to veer toward other definitions of soul here. So I'm leaving black history and culture and New York City and American soul for parts varied, strange, and sometimes unknown (at least by me) to examine the spirit of things, go to places that may not be pretty, or especially pleasant all of the time, but will surely move you. It is my hope that you will be moved to movement.

A month or so ago I came upon a mini Iranian film festival on public television. There were two short films by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, The School That Was Blown Away (1996), and Images from the Qajar Dynasty (1992). But there was also a film that was something beautiful and terrible all at once, The House is Black ( Khaneh siah ast in Farsi) created in 1962 by a woman I had not known of until now: a renowned Persian poet named Forough Farrokhzad. Essentially, The House is Black is a documentary of a leper colony, an awful thing given beauty and humanity by Farrokhzad. In 1962 there were two drugs, Promin and Dapsone, used with limited and painful success to ease the disease, but a true treatment wasn’t developed until the 1970s. It is clear that even the earlier treatments did not make their way to this desolate colony in Iran. Still, with her unflinching shots of these afflicted people as they go about their daily lives, breathtaking is the scene of a woman applying eyeliner, and a...

I was in a marching band—a bigger bunch of spoiled and entitled kids you probably would not have met. We took our opportunity to play instruments and be in a band for granted. Not these kids . It's often when I wonder how some of my fellow Americans can possibly share the same citizenship with me. It's more rare that I'm glad to claim a kinship. These are one of of those times This is the spirit of the thing, this impending presidency, this inauguration and I intend to savor this rare and gleaming moment for as long as I can. It may never come again in my lifetime.

In an attempt to provide an antidote to some of the syrupy (and fake) nonsense that goes on at Christmas time, and to provide some dark humor for those out there who dread the holidays, I'm leaving our regularly scheduled program to bring you Santa-dote . Last year I wrote about St. Nicholas Day, and how it has a dark side (if you check that link out, take some time for David Sedaris's " Si x to Eight Black Men") . This year Santa Claus, who is a direct American descendant of St. Nicholas, gets a bit of a drubbing. I have nothing against Santa, just think that if you look at him from a certain perspective, he can seem frightening, absurd, or just damn funny. I had this conversation with my mom the other day where we were sort of taking issue with old Santa Claus. She said that nowadays they've got him running around Germany, amok, which would be fine with her, if he weren't an American invention . German kids are supposed to get their gifts from the Kristkin...