Here’s an audio/video mixtape from some of the best MJ mixes I’ve heard recently. How many times can we say “RIP Michael?!”

SIDE A : The MJ Warm Up

Track 1. Come On Come On Come On/Lemme Show You What It’s All About: Love the five-part Minding Michael podcast series from Qool DJ Marv Aural Memoirs & da Buttamilk Archives. Featuring the MJ hits I had forgotten along with those beloved pop standards, this podcast is not to be missed. My favorites are Part One, “A Good Time,” for its melancholy, and Part Three, “Grab Your Belt Buckle/Music’s Taking Over” for the disco hits that make you move even when you’re sitting down. “Roughly 75 percent of these songs, I’ve never played in public,” Qool DJ Marv wrote about Minding Michael. “This is my translation of Michael as a fan and DJ, as a boy who grew up with stronger together black family vibes and Black is Beautiful all up in my head, and as a man who still embraces that exuberant idealism by perpetuating it and sustaining it through the magic of the music in the mix.” (Ranging from 47 mins. to over an hour long)

Track 2. Shake It, Shake It, Baby: Eclectic Method’s The Michael Jackson Video: Don’t be deterred by the Peter Jennings intro to this MJ memory lane video mix. For my money, the highlight comes midway through the video when London-based Eclectic Method mashes up “Blame It On the Boogie” with “Black or White,” and then moves seamlessly into “Rock With You” on top of “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Favorite parts of this video show not one, but TWO Michael Jackson videos that stream simultaneously. Shows just what a versatile dancer and performer Michael really was! (4:51 mins)

Track 3. You Can’t Run Away From/This Love I Got: Can’t even remember hearing Jackson Five do “Ready or Not Here I Come,” but you can groove to it here on Norwegian DJ and Producer Teddy Touch’s Memories MJ Tribute mix. Love mixing freestyling and beats with MJ’s classics. (40:04 mins)

SIDE B (The Flip Side)

Track 4. And Don’t Go Around Breaking Young Girls’ Hearts: If you like it when Michael Jackson goes all electronic on you, check out this Billie Jean remix from Philadelphia’s DJ Apt One. Guaranteed to make you move! (6:06 mins)

Track 5. Let Us Realize that a Change Can Only Come/When We Stand Together As One: Believe it or not, there are a handful of viral music videos out there that feature performances by inmates from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, a maximum security prison in the central Philippines. (The prison management has inmates do choreographed dances there for exercise.) The CPDRC did a Thriller video remake in July of 2007, and a “We Are The World” Michael Jackson Tribute just days after Michael passed away. Neither performance needs any introduction. (4:26 and 3:39 mins)

Track 6. Never Can Say Goodbye: DJ Ayres did this Michael Jackson Mix for The Rub, a party that creates long lines around the block of Brooklyn’s Southpaw the first Saturday of every month. The mix is a great chronological history of Michael’s music from “Maybe Tomorrow” (the ’70s) to  “Butterflies” (2001). (53:47 mins) –AFS

Abbie Fentress Swanson is a freelance radio radio reporter (and music addict) based in Brooklyn, New York.

I recently released Kiss the Sky, a novel about a black rock musician. Then I did an event with an actual black rock musician who read my book and said that the part about Michael Jackson was so eerie. I had forgotten all about it. But I found it…written years ago… and yes, eerie.

Tell me what you think about MJ and your memories… I am getting creeped out watching all the old footage, especially the ones of Diana calling Michael “sexy” while they are are both wearing those dark spangly shirts…

I wish he’d been happy. I find it hard to believe he was.

Peace,
F

____________________________________________________

Excerpt, Kiss the Sky, Atria Books, 2009
(Written from the P.O.V. of the main character.)

Drifted into a drowse and thought about the way music was my whole life.

My great grandfather sold Billie Holiday reefers, back when she was a bad little girl and he was a dirty old man. A withered up little yellow man. Always looking at the girls of school-age. A sailor, in and out of port. In town just long enough every time to get great-grandma pregnant. And wasn’t it just like me to love Billie, all of her, even her vices.

Then there was my first musical love, Michael Jackson. I was six, and to my child’s eyes he seemed just enough older to know a lot of things I wanted to learn. He was pure music, shimmering, shimmying, shaking, grooving, moving, liquid hipbones and fluid bell-bottomed pantlegs, denim, slouchy caps, a sexy choirboy backed up by his older brothers; plus television, dancing lions and tin-men, a too-old Diana as Dorothy. But wait, that last part was later.

Still, the Michael and “The Wiz” were always linked in my mind. When I was six, my Daddy and I went to see “The Wiz,” way before the movie with Michael and Diana, before the nose jobs and the skin lighteners and the hair straighteners and out-of-court settlements. Strange third-person memory: I see myself and my father walk towards the exit, along a half-lit aisle, with the play unfolding (bright reds and golds) behind us.

But: Michael. His was the music of longing, in a man-child’s voice that a little girl could understand before she truly knew desire. I liked Michael the same time Daddy liked to play the Isley Brothers. I didn’t understand the Isley’s lyrics (thank God), but their guitar licks and keyboards made it hard for me not to dance; their whispers tickled my ears.

Older still: When my girl scout troop had a party I brought Stevie Wonder and my friend Ronnice brought Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall,” which was everything you needed to know about the difference between uncool and cool. Stevie was uplifting and parent-approved; the teenaged Michael was your best friend’s older brother, a boy who you had a crush on so bad you thought you might melt every time you saw him. Ronnice was in fifth grade and I was in third, which might have been part of my problem, but not all of it. She was what my mother called “fast”–loose with the boys, hard and unforgiving with the girls.

I loved Michael, don’t get me wrong. How could I not? He was my first. But I mounted a defense of Stevie, which all the girls took as a weak-assed move.

When I was in eighth grade, Ronnice had an abortion. Like most of my fast girlfriends, she loved house music, the kind you heard in the clubs she’d sneak into. She was underaged but built like a brick shithouse and nobody checked her I.D. When she got into LL Cool J, I was loving Prince.

Later I worked my way through alternative rock, romantic R&B, gay disco, Public Enemy, Madonna and Grace Jones. Music ecstatic and anthemic, smoke drifting through laser lights, tranny boys in platform heels and lip liner, parties on the subway platform, lots of drugs but not down my throat or up my nose, the music simply lifting me, carrying me like the wind under the cape of a superhero or a pigeon caught in an updraft from a subway grate.

The music, just the music, used to be enough for me. Everything else came later.

I wanted to get back to those days again.

____________________________________________

This is an excerpt from Kiss the Sky (Atria Books 2009) by Farai Chideya. Chideya is a multimedia journalist, author, and the founder of PopandPolitics.com

I am a graduate student at the University of Southern California. I am of Latin American descent; I  grew up, and live in East Los Angeles. From what I knew of white people when growing up is that they lived far, and my mom cleaned their homes.

As I got older, I came to understand the circumstances of my presence in the United States. There was a war back home in El Salvador, my mother, who held a Bachelors degree in Business Administration fled to this country, and was reduced to this work. It was fine work—honest, decent, but at the expense of so much more.

For the most part, I have lived my life in safe zones, interacting with white people from a distance. Not because they were scary to me, but because most just didn’t “get it.”

Now that I am at USC, at the Annenberg School of Journalism, I hear a fair amount of talk on the role of journalists who covers stories that are nitty gritty, the stories of marginalized, low income, communities of color. A community that surrounds USC, yet is absent from the campus. The school—at $18,000 a semester—definitely draws an upper-class student body, earning it the nickname, University of Spoiled Children.

In a recent roundtable discussion, a few professors noted that student journalists need to be comfortable in going into the community and talking to folks. To this I ask, which journalists?

The students in this mid-city academic institution who grew up in the surrounding neighborhood—South Central, ground zero for the Rodney King riots—aren’t uncomfortable. The problem is that their (our) voices aren’t as loud.

While white students feel uncomfortable around people of color what about the students of color who are surrounded by white people?

A tall bald white male student spoke about his experience in South LA, and how he, for the first time, felt like a minority.

The issue of cultural and ethnic sensitivity comes to mind. The stories of economic plight, the stories of people overcoming, the story of the former gang member who got his/her life together, these are not stories where white journalists become “white saviors” because they were able to put some ink to it.

These are stories of real people, that occur every single day, and it takes journalists, who regardless of race or ethnicity have an innate ability to understand the complexity of the human condition.

As one of a few Latinas at Annenberg who comes from an urban setting with a mix of street and academic knowledge, I always find myself contemplating these thoughts. All the time.

I love USC and my program and I have wanted to be a Trojan all my life. But, it’s moments like these that really solidify my presence, my viewpoint, and my understanding towards how stories should be covered, and the importance of community journalism.

We are not all blessed with having grown up in beautiful East or South LA. We are not all blessed with understanding concepts like intersectionality or outsider looking in perspectives, but I hope, that we can at least try to share our stories, without feeling like we just saved someone.

When the same company responsible for the beanie baby craze in the early ’90s released the “Marvelous Malia” and “Sweet Sasha” dolls earlier this year, it created a firestorm. The beanies hit toy shelves in January. Shortly thereafter, the White House issued a statement denouncing the concept of the dolls, which were promptly renamed.

The two dolls—part of the Ty Girlz collection, which includes an assortment of pleasing pop tarts, including “Bubbly Britney” and “Precious Paris”—were notable for another reason. The $10 beanies happened to be the first non-white girlies in the line.

No one really bought Ty’s excuses (the company claimed the dolls weren’t exact replicas of the real-life Sasha and Malia), but many people did express interest in buying the beanies.

“I ordered them because customers called in and asked for them, before they even saw the dolls on the news,” said the owner of Emily’s Hallmark in Danville, CA. “I have daughters and don’t think it’s fair, but hey, what sells, sells.”

She ordered a batch of the dolls and expected to get them on the shelves in February, but those plans were cut short when she received a letter from Ty, saying that—in deference to the Obama family—the dolls had been renamed “Marvelous Mariah” and “Sweet Sydney.”

All names aside, some argue the dolls would have done more good than harm.

“For me personally, the issue is much bigger than exploitation,” Denise Gary-Robertson, the president of Dolls Like Me, an online toy retailer specializing in multicultural dolls, said. “Here we have a manufacturer that has not formerly produced black dolls and now they have two black dolls named after two gorgeous black girls. What does that say to black girls around the world? That says, ‘I now matter. I’m more important.’”

“This is an issue of self-esteem and one of reflection,” she continued. “Around 30 to 40 percent of all children in America are children of color. There should be no manufacturer producing a line of dolls that doesn’t include dolls of color.”

Robertson, who describes her business as “a toy retailer with a conscience,” said she was not exploiting the Obama girls by selling the Ty dolls.

“We were celebrating the fact that Ty is now producing black dolls,” Robertson stressed. “It was secondary that those dolls were named Sasha and Malia.”

The fervor to own the Sasha and Malia dolls is arguably a reflection of the Obama Effect. Blackness is now more desirable than ever, and the rise of the Obamas has unveiled a market that has always been around, but was previously ignored.

Jezebel recently reported a six percent increase from last year in the use of black models on the runways of this year’s fall fashion shows in New York. In an industry previously criticized for its gross lack of diversity, 18 percent of all models this year were women of color, and according to Jezebel, black models were the second-largest ethnic group on the runways.

In the case of the Sasha and Malia doll controversy, Dolls Like Me has been in business for three years and has never carried a Ty beanie in its inventory of 300-plus dolls—because the Ty dolls were always white. Robertson argued that the lack of multicultural inventory on the U.S. market is damaging to the self-esteem of children of color, which is why she’s in business—and business is good.

Robertson said the well-known Clark doll experiments of the 1940s—when most black children tested preferred to play with “pretty,” white dolls because they considered black dolls “ugly” and “bad”—were recently repeated and yielded the same disturbing results.

“I feel that, as a mother, Michelle Obama was well within her rights to do what she did,” Robertson said. “But her role and my role are are very different. She only had to look out for two black girls. I’m looking out for all black girls—that’s where I am.”

Synolve Craft, a freelance writer with a degree in African studies and a contributor to the Deep South Moms Blog, couldn’t disagree more.

“As a parent of two children, I think this is crazy,” Craft said. “You can’t say you’re going to do something for all black children and exploit two black children in the process.”

Craft argued that positive community role models, not dolls, nurture self-esteem in young people, and folks making a profit at the expense of two high-profile children do not embody the values she’d want to instill in her children.

The Obamas, who are indeed the impetus for the rising profile of blackness in America, represent a success—but also a problem. The fact that little Sasha and Malia were so swiftly singled out to be role models for the young black community, simply because they are a first in this country’s long history, hints at the gaping need for black representation in popular culture.

Robertson and Craft take different routes, but ultimately arrive at the same point: There should be more Sashas and Malias to choose from—we shouldn’t have to single those children out to be positive black role models—-and there are, we just haven’t taken the blindfold off to notice. Until now.

“As for Michelle Obama, I think her anger is misplaced,” Robertson argued. “She should be calling out all the manufacturers who aren’t making dolls that reflect children of color. Up until this point, I’ve been the only voice going to manufacturers saying, ‘Wait a minute. When are you going to make some dolls of color? When are we going to recognize that not all of the children in America are white? When are we going to get that?’”

A few days ago, I found myself chatting with a few co-workers about the Chris Brown / Rihanna conflict. After a bit of a pause, one woman remarked:

“I just don’t get this whole angry Black man complex. They need to get it together.”

The strange thing about it was, everyone participating in the conversation nodded in affirmation, thus bolstering her “point”. I, on the other hand, guffawed, shook my head, and retorted, “Huh? This has nothing to do with the ‘angry Black man’ – whatever that means. It’s an abusive relationship… race has nothing to do with it.”

Surprised? I’m sure a few of you are, seeing as how I get comments like this frequently:

and

and

Ok. We need to talk about this.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how I come across on this blog to Black men. Because I care. A lot. I think about how I felt 4 years ago, when I came across the Facebook group Black Men and White Women Come Together (now defunct), or how I’d feel if I read a blog authored by a Black man who finds himself dating primarily (hi, not exclusively) White women. Did this/would this hurt my feelings? Highlight my insecurities? Anger me?

Perhaps.

But then I think about what’s real – at least, to me.

I know that I identify more with my race than I do with my sex. That might sound weird, but it’s true. I identify more with Black men than I do with White women. I think of myself as “bi-racial” before “female”. Because of this, I’ve always felt deeply connected with other bi-racial and African-American folks – men included. (!)

I know that I’m someone who calls out the elephant in the room (I get this from my mom). In my opinion, doing so progresses the conversation past formality, to a place actually worth exploring. Because really, what’s the point of skirting around the issues? It’s boring and pointless.

I also know that discussing a topic like gender relations through a racial lens isn’t easy. It’s visceral and messy. I get that. But I’m not someone who gives free passes. So I knew I’d offend a few when I called out Black men for cat calling. But I also knew that I could have gone deeper… because there is much more to say about the public objectification of Black females (the booty-shaking b*tches, the nappy headed hos, the “come here girl” comments and over-exaggerated head turns… I mean really, let’s get real).  I make no claim that this objectification began in the Black community – just think about the Saartjie Baartman, or “Venus Hottentot” story – but somehow the Black community has managed to perpetuate it. Obviously, not all Black men do this, and obviously some White men and Latino men and whoever-else-men cat call and all the rest – but I’m talking about Black women and Black men here. And it’s an important issue for us to discuss, together.

So yes, I have quite a few concerns with gender relations within the African-American community. But that doesn’t mean I won’t defend Black men wholeheartedly when someone looking in from the outside makes an ignorant blanket statement like the one my co-worker made. A statement based on nothing but TMZ and the 7 o’clock news.

But within the community, we need real talk to move forward. Understand that I want nothing more than to uplift the race, but to do so I think it’s imperative that we address the good, the bad and the ugly. You be real with me, and I promise I’ll be real with you.

This originally appeared on Ryan Barrett’s blog, Cheap Thrills.

Twitter. Twitter. Twitter. Hopefully by now, you’ve heard all about it. News on Twitter (the free microblogging service that let’s you send 140-character messages on whatever you want) is everywhere. It’s as if the media has twitter diarrhea because lately it’s all they are talking about. Reporters from all across the country are joining Twitter in droves and writing about their experiences like David Pogue of the NYT.

Now the media discussion has changed slightly from “hey, there’s this new service called Twitter” to it’s impact on the world of journalism. As Reuters reports, “News organizations are all a-twitter about Twitter: Is it a friend or a foe? Should it be embraced or eschewed? Will Twitter kill journalism or revive it?”

And then you have media outlets like the Financial Times that are trying to teach their readers about the culture and language of Twitter. You know, twitter messages are called “tweets.” The peeps who sign up to read your messages are “followers.” And when you send out someone else’s tweet, you are “re-tweeting.”(This is easily done by addressing your message to a follower by adding an “@” sign to their name, i.e., @faraichideya.)

And as interesting (or not) as this whole conversation about what Twitter is, the better question to ask is why are people using it? Why has Twitter caught on?

The media’s recent discussion and “discovery” is quite amusing to several of us (myself included), who has used Twitter for six months or more (called early adopters) because it used to be a new tool. There was something special about discovering it. Twitter’s long-time users have several reasons for loving and using the free, web-based service.

Like a lot of users, Danyel Smith (@danamo), editor of Vibe, (who I am a big fan of) started using the service because she was curious about it.

Others like novelist/music journalist/cultural critic Touré (@ToureX) thought it could help his professional writing skills.

BTW, he doesn’t really need any help in this area but it’s somehow endearing that he is continuously thinking about and working on his writing. It makes us think he is just like the rest of us, which is one of the beauties of Twitter. Unlike traditional media, which tends to be top-down or a one-way means of “them” telling “us” as readers something, Twitter creates a one-on-one conversation where anyone with a Twitter account can join in the conversation. It’s about two-way communication. Several journalists even started asking their Twitter followers if there were questions they wanted to ask in an important interview. Thus, it’s revolutionizing the way journalism is being done.

Many folks are joining because their favorite celebrities are on Twitter. There are few places in the world where you can talk to TV and movie stars like Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and his wife Demi Moore (@mrskutcher)… and they might talk back. Twitter has given regular folks yet another window into the daily lives of stars through their Twitter streams. You can find all sorts of celebs from Britney Spears (@britneyspears) to Puff Daddy (@iamdiddy) to MC Hammer (@MCHammer) to Omarosa (@omarosa). They are all there – tweeting away!

Gawker even started tracking Twitter accounts with their daily posting of the Twitterati. It’s hilarious and a reminder that people are broadcasting their thoughts out onto the Internet for anyone to read (unless you adjust your privacy settings). And now, a person’s tweets (Senators, writers, TV stars and regular people) have somehow become the news and fodder for the media? Interesting flip!

And there are thousands that are just like me, who also use Twitter because it helps us connect with people— new and old friends. It even helps you meet like-minded folks. Whatever you are into, there is someone on Twitter that likes the same thing. (And you can use Twitter’s search site to find posts on your favorite subject.)

Twitter also keeps you informed and quickly (if you follow the right folks). And you don’t have to check thousands of news sites or even go to a RSS feed service. If you are following @CNN or @Drudge_Report or other media sites and the reporters that have recently hopped on-board, you will be definitely be in the know. And if you downloaded Twitterific or Tweetie for your iPhone (or Twitterberry for your Blackberry), you have these conversations and breaking news at your fingertips.

And obviously, if you have something interesting to say or sell, you should be using Twitter. Except beware, no one likes a constant self-promoter. The Twitter world is all about the give and take of information… you know, sharing. It feels like a conversation (although at times a bit scattered), but a talk nonetheless.

The merits of Twitter and its impact on media will be debated for years to come. But with technology giants, like Google (@Google) joining the Twitter fray, isn’t it time you checked it out for yourself. Don’t take my word for it or the thousands of media folks ranting or raving about it. See for yourself.. You may become a Tweetering fool that neglects their Facebook account for a bit. (Or is that just me?)

It’s not often that David Letterman lets his viewers behind his wise-ass veil to see the salt-of-the-earth Midwestern guy he really is. His first post-9/11 monologue was one example. More recently, his peacemaking with Mary Hicks—mother of the late, great comic Bill Hicks—showed Letterman to be a real mensch, contrite for a wrong committed more than 15 years before.

The controversy between Letterman and Hicks is the stuff of comedy legend. Hicks had appeared on Letterman’s show many times, always funny, sharp, and sometimes a little edgy. But on October 1, 1993, what would have been Hicks’ last appearance was thought to be too edgy, and got cut—reportedly the only performance ever removed from Letterman’s show.

On January 30, 2009, that performance finally aired.

Hicks died of pancreatic cancer not long after that unfortunate episode, on February 26, 1994, exactly 15 years ago. He called himself “Chomsky with dick jokes,” and spoke of spirituality and embracing humanity like a New Age guru (an option kyboshed by his legendary love of cigarettes and booze). But he showed no patience for obnoxious, dim-bulb audiences. Fans love that about him.

It is a great testament to Bill Hicks that he is still respected by his fellow comics and revered by discerning comedy fans. His CDs and DVDs still fly off the shelves. Several biographies and compilations of his material have been published, he’s been the subject of academic research, tributes are held in his honor, and Hicks goods are a cottage industry.

The question is, why? Why is Bill Hicks so popular today when he never got the recognition his talent demanded during his lifetime? Sure, he was and remains something of a demigod in the U.K., but American audiences never gave him his due, while lesser comics found unmitigated success. (As biographer Cynthia True noted in American Scream, a week after Hicks died, Carrot Top received an American Comedy Award.)

Maybe his timing was off. Not his comedic timng—that was always impeccable. But being a political comic with a sharp leftist bent was not safe or convenient in the Reagan/Bush years when Hicks’ star was on the ascent.

His appreciation for drug use—encouraging those willing to open their minds and just say yes—was off kilter with a nation pledged to “just say no.” He asked why TV news never covers “positive drug stories”:

“Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration and that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There’s no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and you are the imagination of yourself. Here’s Tom with the weather!”

When Gordon Gekko was telling America that greed is good, and Americans were believing it—continuing unto our current nightmare—Hicks was reminding his audience that the ability to buy and sell things is no measure of success.

And long before President Obama made America post-racial (*wink*), maybe Hicks’ take on race relations, vis-à-vis the Rodney King riots, was too discomforting to mainstream audiences.

San Francisco-based comic and playwright Kurt Weitzmann says Hicks’ comedy was an act of courage in the Reagan years.

“Hicks was fearless in stating his point of view. When you’re telling jokes to a room full of strangers in a comedy club, trying to make them laugh with a definite political slant that usually goes against the belief structure of a good half of the room, your logic must be rock solid and your jokes must be brilliant. His act was both rock solid and brilliant,” Weitzmann says.

Yet despite the difficulty in getting his message into the mainstream, Hicks maintains and even expands his fan base. And his effect on other comics continues. Kevin Kataoka, a very clever and highly successful comic in his own right, says his early contacts with Hicks provided a foundation for his career that followed. “He praised my ‘bad ventriloquist’ joke that I treasure for that reason,” Kataoka says. “He made me realize that he didn’t want my act to mimic his—something comics don’t get—but to be honest to what makes you truly unique and funny.”

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of Hicks’ brilliance is the staying power of much of his material. “My political jokes are old in two weeks. Hicks’ stand up after 15 years,” says Tina Dupuy, a Los Angeles-based comic and writer. “He hasn’t told a joke since the Lorena Bobbit case, and still no one can follow him.”

Dupuy’s position finds ample proof all over the internet. Gays in the military still an issue? Rush Limbaugh said some stupid and inflammatory jackass thing for no good goddamn reason? New Kids on the Block are selling gutless, soulless pop to adoring fans (again!) while music that matters is pushed to the margins? The U.S. military is plodded down in the desert somewhere, making war on people we claim to be helping? Hicks’ material is still relevant, still on target, and still hard-hitting. And funny.

But Hicks’ brilliance goes beyond taking the day’s news and spinning it into comedy gold. Like Kataoka says, it has to do with being honest with yourself and with your audience, being true to your reality and letting the humor come from that naked place. Hicks did that. And beyond honesty, he committed to it with love.

Bill Hicks was 32 when he died. That just feels wrong.

Can’t we all just leave Jessica Simpson alone? Lady Lovely Locks strutted her country stuff on a stage in Florida last weekend and the crowd went wild—with whispers. Shhhh! (Is she, could she, no way … a whole size two?) The blogosphere followed up with fat jokes a plenty. People, give the girl a break. I personally appreciate the fact that Jessica stopped starving herself and started eating a few egg whites every other day. And I’m not alone: Kim Kardashian agrees. Lil’ sis Ashlee does too. So what’s our penance for being hypercritical a-holes? Look in the mirror. That’ll do.

Speaking of food, what the hell is Bruce Springsteen thinking with this Supermarket Sweep song on his new album? It’s supposed to be an ode to the lady at the checkout counter, which is sweet and all, but sorry dude—the song belongs on clearance. And the vid on YouTube is past its expiration date. Even the dumpster divers are keeping their distance. Pee-yew!

POP QUIZ! Gerber baby x 2 + superstah mom and pop – one Billy Bob + four other rugrats = The Hottie Bunch.

It’s good to know that Amy Fisher really cleaned herself up in prison. Girlfriend is now a momma of three and a porn star to boot. Hooray! (And, for the record, if you shoot someone’s wife in the head with a semiautomatic pistol, you can’t simply refer to it as “something stupid” you did in high school. Sneaking out of your bedroom after curfew to go meet your friends at Taco Bell for a 99 cent bean burrito and then getting caught  is “something stupid” you did in high school. But I must say, that bean burrito was worth it.)

The hat with nine lives. It just won’t die! Aretha Franklin got criticized for wearing a bow-rific hat to Obama’s inauguration ceremony. But hey, the hat is here to stay. Like it or not. It keeps popping up. On Facebook. On blogs. On YouTube (see below). And the bow just gets bigger every time. Love it, love it!

Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Word on the street is that 21-year-old Evan Rachel Wood is getting cozy with, of all things, Mickey Rourke, who is 56 going on mummification. Boyfriend nearly drugged and drank himself to the grave years ago, but has made a “comeback” and is racking up the award nominations (and wins) for his role in The Wrestler. The man may have cleaned himself up (kinda), which is sexy and admirable in some circles, but the fact that he plays Wood’s father in the film makes this relationship borderline incestuous. Call me crazy. Or don’t.

Look y’all! Winehouse made a friend! And they’re playing strip Scrabble! And Winehouse is obviously at a loss for words, cuz, uh … hmm. She’s pathetically losing. Shouldn’t the game be over by now?

Oh man. We knew it was coming. I don’t know how they’ve done it, considering the event at the end of the first movie, but they have gone ahead and made a sequel to Crank. You know, the ridiculous movie where Jason Statham plays a guy who is injected with a toxic “Chinese cocktail” that will kill him unless he keeps his adrenaline pumping? Yeah.

I first heard about this when it was announced last year that our favorite weirdo Bai Ling has a role in the movie. Automatically, that’s a strike against it. But wait, here’s the synopsis, according to IMDb: “Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working.”

That’s right, baby. Another ridiculous premise and more Chinese mobsters! What is it with Jason Statham and Asian gangsters? Seriously. Transporters, Crank, War… now this. And is it just me, or does he essentially play the same guy in every movie he’s in?

Watch the uncensored, not-safe-for-work, for-restricted-audiences-only trailer for Crank 2: High Voltage here. Lots of Asian gangsters, thugs and hookers up in there. The movie opens in theaters in April. I guarantee you won’t see me standing in line for this one.

UPDATE: Oh yeah. Word has it, none other than Kwai Chang Caine himself, David Carradine has a cameo rocking the yellowface in Crank 2 as the has-been Chinese mobster who steals Chelios’ heart. Wow. This movie is really going there, and they just don’t care.

This post originally appeared on the Angry Asian Man blog.

Immersion at and into Children's Book World. Photo by Deborah Stokol.

“I noticed I had developed a fantasy about myself as a writer as opposed to actually doing it, [so] I finally summoned up the bad taste to move to Los Angeles.”

—Leslie Dixon

Perhaps there really is something inherently tacky about Los Angeles.

Whether it’s the mismatched houses, the nouveau riche displays of wealth, or the combination of flip flops with ball gowns, this not-uniform sprawl is undeniably unconventional.

But despite that gaucherie, LA has a pretty long tradition (well, long for a relatively new city) of city-based writers (especially screen writers).

Besides Hollywood’s (questionable) allure, one of the things that draws out-of-towners to this coastal metropolis, or keeps locals from leaving, (besides the weather) is that very bizarre collection of brash traits and “bad taste.”

Despite its “airhead” reputation, LA boasts a diverse population of people who love to read.

It’s no surprise Los Angeles has a slew of Borders and Barnes & Nobles. And I’d be lying if I were to say I wasn’t a fan of these mammoth, warehouse-like book sources, replete with carpets and coffee and couches to lounge on.

But the city’s large, commercial bookstores have a complement in the many independent book shops you’ll find here. LA’s big enough to accommodate those hoping for the practical chain store, with its supply and consistency, as well as the cozy, one-of-a-kind shop.

The Great Gatsby’s Jordan Baker once said she liked “large parties [because] they’re so intimate. At small parties there’s never any privacy.” The same rule goes for wide cities: their size can account for many mounds, crannies, crevasses, variety, and secrets.

Here are five bookshops—small, perhaps even unknown, that grace the city’s many borders.

Children’s Book World

10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd.
LA, CA 90064
310.559.2665
Mon-Fri: 10 a.m.-5:30 a.m.
Sat: 10 a.m.- 5p.m.

It’s hard for me to be objective about this gem. Its enthusiastic employees introduced me to too many of my favorite books growing up. I spent many riveting afternoons there, curled up with an otherwise-impossible-to-find piece of fiction. But even were I not to have the fondest memories of the place, and even were I not to be aware of the fact that those working there know the ins and outs of all pages making their way through the ½ sign door, I would still say anybody with a soft spot for children, or children’s literature, or finger puppets, or story time should make his or her way to this three-room fantastical HQ.

Hennessey + Ingalls

214 Wilshire Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310.458.9074
Mon-Sun: 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Hennessey + Ingalls is beautiful, a real treat to explore. Just around the corner from the 3rd Street Promenade and another from the Santa Monica bluffs, this shop, like Rizzoli and Taschen, is a monument to art and architecture, and books concerning the two. It takes the specialized bookstore to an elegant and almost old-world level—you can almost see a scribe, a quill, and handwritten sets of parchment maps out of the corner of your eye—while offering intricate cards and handmade journals to purchase on your way out as you leave, inspired to create something lovely of your own.

The Mystery Bookstore

1036-C Broxton Ave.
LA, CA 90024
310.209.0415
Mon-Thurs: 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
Fri-Sat: 10 a.m.-9 p.m.
Sun: 12 p.m.-7 p.m.

An almost subterranean bookstore implausibly hidden between Westwood Village’s Eurochow and a parking lot, the Mystery Bookstores sells books only dealing with mysteries, offering the random and weird in addition to the commercial and easy-to-find. Harried passerbys and sweatershirt-clad students will be surprised at the scope of the Mystery Bookstore’s offerings. They are as likely to find new copies of Agatha Christie and Christopher Pike as they are to see dog-eared copies of Conan Doyle’s works.

Metropolis Books

440 S. Main St.
LA, CA 90013
213.612.0174
Tues-Sat: 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sun: 12 p.m.-5 p.m.
Second Thurs of each month (Art Walk): open until 10 p.m.

Straight out of Fritz Lang’s brain and onto the city’s streets, the title of this bookstore fittingly complements its placement in the bleak, post-apocalyptic setting of LA’s Downtown. True, this little section of Downtown is eclectic and funky, attracting a twenty-something crowd to its SoHo-like blocks, but the rest of the general area is stark and almost forbidding. Nevertheless, there’s something truly poetic—almost reminiscent of a comic book aesthetic—about that desolate countenance. It makes escaping into a warm, spacious, brightly-lit, well-stocked, book-filled zone all the more appealing. And once you’ve stepped inside and inched towards the shelves, you can pull a book down, one that’s either new, or was once lovingly paged through by unknown hands, sit on a stool, and begin to read with your coffee beside you and your knees drawn to your chin.

Village Books

1049 Swarthmore Ave.
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
310.454.4063
Mon-Fri: 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Sat-Sun: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

LA hipsters have long and disparagingly called the Pacific Palisades a cultural wasteland, full of people more concerned with tennis and tanning than with literary pursuits. But that characterization is unfair. Not-so-hidden at the end of one of the city-within-a-city’s main street blocks, Swarthmore, lies a small, warmly lit, and very welcoming bookshop by the name of Village Books. Veteran employees bake biscuits once a week and pass them around, the back-end children’s section looks like a full nook or one half of an internal brown gazebo, and the multitude of books makes a visitor wonder how so many volumes can fit into so petite a space. What the store doesn’t carry, its workers can order, and this haven has another marked advantage in its very near proximity to the sea.

Honorable Mentions:

Book Soup

8818 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
310.659.3110
Mon-Sun: 9 a.m.-10 p.m.

Vroman’s Bookstore

695 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91101
626.449.5320
Mon-Thurs: 9 a.m.-9 p.m.
Fri-Sat: 9 a.m.-10 p.m.
Sun: 10 a.m.-9 p.m.

Skylight Books

1818 N. Vermont Ave.
LA, CA 90027
323.660.1175
Mon-Sun: 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

Portrait of a Bookstore

4360 Tujunga Ave.
Studio City, CA 91604
818.769.3853
Mon-Sat: 9:30 a.m.-10 p.m.
Sun: 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

Hi De Ho Comics & Books with Pictures

525 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310.394.2820
Wed-Sat: 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Sun-Tues: 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

For the past month, an Aussie accent has been conspicuously missing from the morning airwaves of Los Angeles’s radio station 89.9 FM.

As of December 1, Nic Harcourt vacated his post as the host of Santa Monica-based independent radio station KCRW’s pivotal daytime show, “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” and left his position as the legendary station’s music director.

In his place as the new host of “Morning” and as music director, is Jason Bentley’s smooth baritone. Bentley started at KCRW as a phone volunteer over 20 year ago, and hosted the weeknight show, “Metropolis.”

Bentley has been a mainstay in the dance music scene in Los Angeles, but his resumé extends far beyond the 1’s and 2’s. He was the music supervisor for The Matrix trilogy, an avid music producer and remixer, as well as a promoter of local music and art events. He recently became the first DJ ever to play the post-Academy Awards Governor’s Ball. He also headlined the Obama campaign’s official Los Angeles celebration on election night.

Now he takes on the daunting task of running KCRW, one of the last true vestiges of independent music on the airwaves. With the help of podcasting and Internet radio, KCRW and “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” have gained prominence throughout the world. Maintaining the status that previous music directors carefully cultivated is no small task, but Bentley has a thoughtful approach to his new digs.

P+P had a chance to speak with him on the phone and ask him a few questions about the KCRW legacy, as well as what he plans on doing different now that he is in the driver’s seat.

What’s your impression of outgoing music director Nic Harcourt’s legacy at KCRW?

I think he’s really taken the brand experience of KCRW and given it more of an international profile, by really taking KCRW.com on his back and putting that out there—The KCRW Presents” and “KCRW.com Presents” that we do in places like San Fran, New York, and Chicago. It’s a funny thing because KCRW is strong because it’s rooted in a community and it’s uniquely Los Angeles. But it has grown far beyond LA. “Act locally, think globally,” I believe, is the expression. He’s kind of been the international ambassador for us. He’s also strengthened the importance of live music…I think Nic took it to a whole other level—things like broadcasting live from South by Southwest in Austin and other big music conferences around the country. I think in certain ways he’s really helped to build the station’s influence and profile nationally and internationally. I think we’re fortunately positioned because LA is the entertainment capital and we’re sort of feeding the other media outlets. They’re either listening to us or hiring our DJ’s as consultants.

How do you plan on making the show your own while still embodying the spirit of ‘Morning Becomes Eclectic’?

I have a high regard for the music directors that we’ve had. I hope to take measured doses of each—the sum of the strengths. I want to break the show down in terms of what you’d expect. It’s been pretty rigid so far and I want to make it a little more unexpected. I want to give people the sense that it’s beyond music, which is the anchor, but I’d like to welcome people by.

We’ve had a lot of success with this guest DJ project. I think it opens up an interesting angle in the broadcast component. I’d like to bring that same success to the airwaves and maybe bridge to online using on-air teasers.

As far as my dance music roots, I can’t deny my own identity, I owe a lot to the scene, and it’s part of who I am. There will be that. It’s just that I won’t launch into the 30/40 minutes of minimal German techno.

I want to cast it as sophisticated and cosmopolitan international music. I think I can present dance music as international culture and it will make more sense in the context of ‘Morning Becomes Eclectic.’

You’re quoted in the press release announcing your move to host of MBE, talking about the “hypnotic pulse of the night” vibe for’ Metropolis’ versus the  “optimism of the morning” for ‘Morning Becomes Eclectic.’ Can you elaborate on these metaphors?

I kinda feel like there’s a responsibility to be optimistic, to a certain extent, in the morning. I think a lot of the success of morning radio has to do with listeners in the stereotypical urban zoo; the escapism it offers them. You don’t want to worry about the traffic or the day ahead, it’s just something where people can check out a little bit. I don’t want to bring the darkness, the feel of the night, to that point in people’s days.

Garth Trinidad and ‘Chocolate City’ are going weekly to fill your Metropolis timeslot from 8 – 10; Why did you pick them?

I needed to fill that, and after looking at a few different scenarios, I just felt like Garth really still has some room to grow and something to offer. I think that his program has suffered a little bit after becoming a once a week thing. I think he can be even better-suited playing more often. I think it gives him more time to explore new music and I think he has an appreciation of that challenge.

I’ve always been a fan and we’ve been friends since he first came to the station. Communication is essential to having a better continuity in the station. Sometimes in an organization, there’s too much dysfunction. I needed someone that I could jive with. There’s no doubt that he’s a confident person and he has a voice. You can’t just be looking at it as a paycheck and you have to understand your role as a community servant, and I think he broadens that community for KCRW.

A friend who works at Artist Direct said that music director at KCRW is one of the top five jobs in the world (music nerd or not)z—What do you think about that?

I didn’t fully appreciate the influence of this position until the announcement. My inbox flooded. You’re sort of the commander of this fleet of incoming ships. You gotta navigate and keep track of all of these movements. You’re really trying to connect the dots with the bands that are trying to emerge and make a difference.

I was definitely humbled in the first week with the kind of attention. Not only does it drive home just how strongly that people feel about MBE and the station, but real difference that you can make in the lives of a band. Presenting a show in the LA market. Helping them find a spot to play at a showcase that we’re sponsoring at SxSW or CMJ. All of these little things make a difference for bands trying to get out there. I knew all of this on the periphery, but it’s been interesting and eye-opening to see the type of responsibility that I have.

What is your process for planning out so many sets throughout the course of a week and still keeping it fresh?

One thing I’ve noticed from doing the nighttime slot for so long is that it’s kind of a constant. Imagine you’re kind of refining your sets and your acts all the time. You have this idea of what you’re playing generally. You’re the one listening the closest so you kind of have this overall sense of whether you’re burning stuff out or you need to work something else in, or you have to challenge yourself.

I think it’d be more difficult to do one show a week than doing it consistently because it’s almost like you’re picking up right where you left off for five days. There’s no perfect show, but you’re going to keep working on your skill like a martial art.

“Morning Becomes Eclectic” airs weekdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on 89.9 FM and can also be streamed and podcast at www.kcrw.com. Check out the site’s announcement about Jason’s new job here.

On Election Night, I caught up with spoken word artists, Sekou Andrews (aka tha misfit) and Steve Connell, to get their poetic thoughts on the Obama’s win. Andrews and Connell were featured performers at Obama’s California Headquarters celebration. The two artists created a special poem called “Obama Takes America Back” about Obama’s historic win.

Andrews and Connell, both National Poetry Slam Champions, are no strangers to political activism and worked with the Norman Lear “Declare Yourself” campaign back in 2002. For the spoken word artists, the political is personal. The very definition of democracy, of being a Christian, of being an environmentalist is changing. The duo discuss George W. Bush’s role as a great motivator and how fear caused many Americans to become politically active. Check out the interview above and their performance below.

For two years, the election has been gathering material and momentum like a political avalanche advancing on the world.

It seems that everywhere you look, you will be confronted with signs of the process: red-blue Obama posters, bumper stickers and pins rest on dorm room walls, bus stops, cars and jackets. Evidence of anti-Palin lampooning crops up in both likely and unlikely places, uniting ideological foes from the Left and Right. Adamant Obama/Biden, McCain/Palin and even Ron Paul stickers look like they’ve pasted themselves onto every available (and unavailable, if you count freeway overpasses) surface.

Today, voter turnout’s likely to reach record numbers as the “high stakes” stir up even the apathetic. Facebook statuses (stati?) vehemently urge citizens “to walk the walk,” anxiously remind users “not to forget to vote” and criticize those whose views may conflict with their own (”Jane Smith is sad and disappointed the people she respected are voting yes on x and no on y. How could they?!”).

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s just decidedly not voting. Yet there are people who aren’t going to the polls today. Faced with a set of options they find dissatisfying, they’re not choosing a candidate. Or, because they think their vote is ineffective, useless, or silly, they’re not casting it. Thinking the existing system fundamentally flawed, they’re not aiding in its maintenance.

Gavin McInnes is one such non-voter. The 38-year-old Ottawa native, Montreal educated and Williamsburg transplant who’s a vegetarian, co-founded Vice magazine, started Street Carnage, gave us the satirical gift of Sophie Can Walk and recently became a U.S. citizen, is leery of taking part in what he sees as the voting debacle.

On the phone, we discussed his take on the whole thing:

Did you used to vote in Canada?

I voted once. It was an empty vote. I wrote nothing in the ballot.

If you abhor the vote in either place, why change to, or add another, citizenship?

I live in New York and love America. I think it’s a great place. I’ve been here nine years. Why become a citizen? Well, traveling and voting. I’m not registered under a party. I’m not registered at all. Since voting’s out, I can say that with a green card, you can’t leave the country for more than six months. Once you’re a citizen, you can leave for as long as you want.

Why no vote, in general and this time?

Voting’s lame. I don’t understand why all these people CARE. I get all these emails from friends and people I respect, urging me to vote and to get out for Obama. Those emails embarrass me. They think Obama’s different. They keep talking about “hope” and “change,” but all these politicians act like they’re at a karaoke session. Their ideas and speeches are pre-written by their strategists. None of them [the politicians] can be trusted.

Just because you’re voting for someone, and he wins, doesn’t mean you’re going to get who you voted for. You never know who you’re going to get. If I were blind and couldn’t hear, I would think Clinton was a fiscal Conservative. While he was in office, he spent little. Bush has spent like a Democrat. Politicians lie. You think Obama will keep any of his promises?

All politicians are the same to me. They’re all in it for the vote.

It doesn’t matter who wins?

Go into a coma for four years, check what happened with Iraq and the economy, and you won’t be able to tell who was president.

People think there’s a danger of overturning Roe v. Wade, but that wouldn’t happen. The average American doesn’t want that. The idea that Obama somehow equals equality, the end of war, change and friendship is so childish. It’s the kind of thing people with Liberal Arts degrees talk about who never do their research. They took women’s studies and philosophy of self, and they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s a quagmire we’re stuck in. You should hear the level of discourse they engage in when they hang out. “Sarah Palin’s such a bitch. We should kick her in the cunt.” That’s what they can come up with while talking politics? Her resume looks pretty similar to Obama’s when it comes to experience.

There’s so much insincerity. These people threw “debate parties” to feel educated and involved. I went. You know what happened? They spent the whole time hanging out and drinking wine. No one even watched the debates. My friend David Choe, the muralist and graffiti artist, is voting for Obama and made one of the posters. [Even though] he made the poster on a lark, I keep wanting to say, “You know, Obama wouldn’t let you spray paint whales on a wall, David.”

[Moving away from David to the Obama-obsessed:]

They’re too scared to admit they’re ignorant. They think they’ll be racists if they don’t vote for Obama. But it’s reverse racism to vote for him based on that reason.

[Elaborating on the issue of racism:]

People are too selfish not to vote for someone based on that criteria. If you want something, you’ll throw a temper tantrum to get it. Company, money, friends, you’re not going to deny yourself that based on race. You’ll think “friends for me!” If you don’t like Black people, but you think Obama will be the best thing for you, you’ll vote for him. If you don’t vote for him, you’re not a racist, you just don’t agree with him.

Do you think, as many say, things have gotten worse and the country needs rescuing?

People always talk about how bad things are. The economy’s gone up 45 degrees since we’ve been recording data. Life expectancy’s really high. There’s a lot of talk that everyone’s getting cancer, but it’s just that the names have changed and people talk about it now. Before, if someone died of cancer, folks would say “she passed,” but now that there’s a name for it, everyone seems to have it. Medicine is great. Water’s never been better. Fluoride’s good for our teeth. Besides people talk about how bad the education is and how it needs funding. Well, funding doesn’t affect people’s grades. It’s that vague Liberal Arts bullshit. My dad would never have put up with that. I doubled in English and Women’s Studies in college, but there wasn’t a semester that I didn’t have to take MATH. He valued a traditional education, and a lot of these liberals just have vague terms for things.

Is there anything else about peer campaigning that bothers you?

There’s no one in New York who doesn’t dislike Sarah Palin. New York belongs to Obama. He’s going to win in that state. So why are they campaigning there? Most people agree, so…

So would you call yourself someone who’s disinterested in politics?

No, definitely not. People think this whole “not voting” thing is apathy. It’s not. I’m not saying no to politics, I just don’t think taking part in this particular act is helpful. But I’m really interested in politics.

This is the point where someone in a class would ask the theoretical question what if everyone felt like you, and no one voted?

Yeah but it doesn’t work like that. It wouldn’t happen. Maybe if nobody voted they’d rethink the two party system. The big picture is the way things are TODAY is lame. None of them can be trusted. Penn JiIlette (of all people) seems to get it. So does John Stossel (see embed in the link to the article I wrote about it recently.)

Oh no he Diddy! ICYMI: Diddy and his daughters posed for the October issue of L’Uomo Vogue. (Charges are still pending.)

Gun used to murder J.Hud’s relatives found. Or so they think. It’s been a rough week (to put it lightly) for the “American Idol” showstopper. Her mother, brother and nephew were found dead—and not all at once. New developments have surfaced on a near daily basis and the story is far from solved. We send our deepest condolences to Jen and the rest of the fam.

Move over Barack, here comes Barkley. The former NBA star told CNN’s Campbell Brown all about his big plans to be a big governor when he grows real big one day. (I kid, I kid.) Anyone who ‘fesses up to being a “big pro-choice guy” and a “big gay marriage guy” is kind of a big deal in my book.

OK, who done it? Who screwed off Cosby’s head and replaced it with this Made-in-Crazy knockoff? (Theo! Rudy! . . . Claire?)

Kanye West Likes ALL CAPS BUT THAT’S THE WAY LIFE IS SOMETIMES!

A wee-bit too much Bacon in your diet? Well, here’s a surefire way to purge your system. Anyone who thinks this punk is a suitable replacement for The Bacon is . . . probably in braces. And piling on the Noxema every night to keep that oily teenybopper complexion in order. (Which is why this makes me grab for my bottle of Tums.)

Speaking of Tums . . . Click here if you dare.

And last but never least,  Jamaican me crazy, Becks! (Alright, you had your fun. Take it off now.)

What goes on in the depths of these woods is mysterious, so outsiders blanket their wonder with a specious answer, replacing one mystery with another: Where there is darkness, let there be voodoo.

The practice of voodoo is associated with darkness. In the dark underworld of blood-thirsty zombies and animal sacrifice, dark-skinned people are believed to congregate in secret underground locales to conjure spirits and hex foes using snakes and dolls. This understanding is all wrong, but it’s exactly what the vendors and tour guides up and down Bourbon Street want everyone to assume—because it sells.

The New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau reports that New Orleans accommodated just over seven million visitors in 2007, and those visitors spent $4.8 billion. Around seventy percent of visitors were in New Orleans for pleasure in ‘07 and over eighty percent reported visiting the French Quarter and Bourbon Street during their stay.

Tourism is arguably New Orleans’ most important industry and judging from the number of voodoo-themed shops, tours, t-shirts, dolls, and mini-marts available throughout the city, the African-derived religion is a mainstay in the marketing of the place. But its public portrayal is largely inaccurate and plays into misconceptions that undermine its authenticity and perpetuate its negative reception as a religion and way of life.

“They’re presenting what people think is supposed to be there,” observes Patrick Polk, a professor of world arts and cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. “From big parties with drums to priests, priestesses, and people getting possessed and calling down the gods, there’s no good evidence that this ever really existed outside our perception of New Orleans.”

This (mis)perception can be traced back to the findings documented for the Louisiana Writers’ Project, a New Deal relief effort organized by the Works Progress Administration of the 1930s. The purpose of the writers’ project was to produce a series of sectional guidebooks that focused on the cultural, economic, and scenic resources of the United States. Some scholars argue that the writers based their New Orleans voodoo field reports on folklore, as opposed to historical research, and thereby question the validity of the completed project.

Author Robert Tallant, however, later based his book, Voodoo in New Orleans, on the work produced by the writers of the project. The book was well-received and widely distributed upon release—even local drug stores carried copies. It quickly emerged as the defining voice of New Orleans voodoo. Sixty years later, it’s still reprinted and used as a source of reference and controversy.

Tallant’s book served to “popularize” the idea of voodoo, says Jason Berry, a journalist and New Orleans native. The book was written with a racist slant, Berry acknowledges, and this set the stage for consumption of voodoo in the city in later years. Today most of the goods and services offered throughout the French Quarter pander to people’s wildest imaginings of black spiritual practice.

-

Priestess Miriam Chamani’s Voodoo Spiritual Temple on N. Rampart street is a small shop filled with souvenir voodoo dolls. There is a hallway stocked with jarred herbs and other unlabeled ingredients used to make personalized gris-gris bags (which are thought to bring luck or protect their owners from evil). Outside, there’s a secondary building—an afterthought of sorts—entered only by exiting the rear of the shop. It is outfitted as the priestess’s temple, housing divination bones, other Catholic, Buddhist, and voodoo relics, and most importantly, the priestess’s snake.

Chamani is a local celebrity. She was named one of the top ten most powerful voodoo priestesses in New Orleans and has made numerous television appearances. She journeys abroad to offer her services to interested parties and claims to perform readings for international clients who fly into New Orleans for one-on-one consultations.

She is and does all of this, yet when pulled aside in the temple gift shop on a Saturday afternoon to briefly discuss her work and spiritual beliefs, Chamani seemed a bit bothered. She said only: “This space can tell you more about voodoo than I can tell you.”

By “this space,” she meant the gift shop.

“Voodoo is about moneymaking,” she said, half-jokingly, with a grin. She repeatedly vocalized her concern about missing sales during the interview. “We all got to pay light bills, heating bills, energy bills, water bills, and taxes, you know.”

Chamani says she receives one true believer for every person who walks into her temple to patronize the religion, “so it all balances out,” she reasons. Whether the self-appointed priestess actually practices what she preaches is questionable, but her need and lust for profit are not. She’s obviously willing to exploit her religion—by pushing handmade voodoo dolls and gris-gris bags onto non-believers—for the sake of a sale. Perhaps the only true religion behind her work is the worship of the ancestral spirit of one Adam Smith.

“When Miriam Chamani comes out with her snake, she’s sort of bringing to life the stereotypes and romantic popular culture images,” says Polk. “It’s not necessarily bad, but there’s not much behind it . . . It’s like going to Disneyland and riding the Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s all for show.”

Polk may be right. One of Chamani’s colleagues over at the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, where Chamani worked when she initially moved to New Orleans over twenty years ago, spoke freely of the legitimacy, or illegitimacy, of the services provided by the museum.

“One of our priests is off doing a phony little reading for some convention as we speak,” commented Jerry Gandolfo, the general manager of the museum. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s very serious about himself, but if a convention calls and asks him to do a reading for them, he’s there for the money. He does those readings for show.”

Gandolfo explained that the work of the priests and priestesses is very draining, so to avoid throwing too much of themselves and their energy into each and every reading, they gauge the sincerity of the patron involved and tailor their services accordingly. For most of the readings and tours provided around Bourbon St., the sincerity of the patron is usually drowned out by a jumbo daiquiri, chased with a series of flaming shots, and a beer for good measure.

“What are you here for? Are you here to learn about voodoo or are you just here to be entertained?” asks Gandolfo. “I mean, we get a lot of people with drinks in their hands, drunk out of their wits, who ask, ‘Where can I find a voodoo doll? I got to find a voodoo doll to bring back home.’ I can either tell them to get lost, or I can sell it to them and tell them to get lost, so I’ll sell them one because rent here in the quarter is a fortune.”

Another popular request is, “I’m a good Christian, but will you do a death curse for me?”

Dora Hembry, a voodooist sales clerk at Voodoo Authentica, gets this request all the time. Hembry finds the request not only hypocritical, but also delusional and offensive. She complains that people often affiliate her with evil, an accusation that never quite loses its sting.

Lifelong Louisiana resident Sterling Hayes is one of those cynics,

“If you’re weak-minded, they’ll prey on you,” he argues. “It’s trickery. It’s harmful. It’s something used to deceive people. If you believe in it and go pay your money for it, they’ll go and take your money. No doubt about it.”

For the sake of getting the bills paid, New Orleans voodooists seem eager to sell out their religion for a fast buck. A voodoo doll here, a gris-gris bag there—but at what cost?  The money paid for such items does little to correct the misunderstandings and strong opinions folks have of the religion, and it only perpetuates the notion that voodooists are out for themselves and cannot be trusted.

New Orleans voodoo is much richer than the “Made in China” tag found on most of the Bourbon St. merchandise lets on. It’s homegrown. It’s found in the soil and shadows that support and surround the everyday lives of Louisiana natives. It’s local folklore that finds its way into perpetuity by word of mouth.

It’s the doctor who tells the mother of a sick child to go find a woman who has never seen her mama and ask her blow into the child’s mouth for healing. It’s the Mason jar, filled with a foul-smelling concoction of atralagus, onion, and other herbs, stored behind the front door and used to treat the family when the common cold hits. It’s sweeping the porch with red brick dust every morning to uncross any gris-gris, or ill will, that may have landed on one’s front doorstep overnight.

Over sixty million people practice voodoo worldwide, and according to Gandolfo, fifteen percent of New Orleanians practice the formal religion. One hundred percent of the folklore that steers and colors the lives of New Orleans natives is rooted in voodoo, he stresses, and for the most part, this voodoo is disguised and passed on as family tradition.

New Orleanians are full of family stories that chip away at the darkness of voodoo. These stories illuminate the nuanced, folkloric presence voodoo-inspired practices have in their everyday lives and the role it played in their upbringing. The dark distortions and caricatures propagated in the French Quarter may be profitable, but the real voodoo experience cannot be bought and sold—because it’s locked away in the family vaults, or otherwise lost in those deep, dark woods where only the natives can find it.