Hateful religious zealots provide for a teachable moment

This article was posted on the blog of San Diego CityBeat this morning:

October 17, 2009 - 8:33 am — Peter Holslin

Aside from its glossy signs (“GOD HATES FAGS,” “THANK GOD FOR 9/11”) and its sickeningly callous tactics (its parishioners have protested at the funerals of AIDS victims and soldiers who died in Iraq), Westboro Baptist Church is perhaps most famous for prompting creative counter-demonstrations.

Ten years ago, filmmaker Michael Moore and a team of gay friends chased around the church’s founder, Rev. Fred Phelps, in a giant pink bus dubbed the “Sodomobile.” Last March, a group of frat boys at the University of Chicago danced to such queer classics as Donna Summer’s “I’m Coming Out” and Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” during a WBC protest.

And on Friday afternoon, a boisterous crowd of gay-rights activists, open-minded church-goers and high-school students from across the city met half a dozen WBC protestors picketing outside the San Diego High School Educational Complex with signs bearing slogans like “LOVE IS ALL U NEED,” “GOD IS LOVE” and “GOD LOVES FAGS.”

When it comes to hatred, Westboro Baptist Church has it in spades—the organization is anti-gay, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, anti-military and probably anti- some other things that observers haven’t yet noticed. The group is so hateful, in fact, that even some of the country’s most intolerant evangelicals have distanced themselves from it: The late Jerry Falwell, well-known for his homophobic remarks, once called Phelps a “first-class nut.”

But that hasn’t dissuaded Phelps and his followers, many of whom are either related to Phelps by blood or through marriage. In fact, this has only encouraged them to focus their ire on rival evangelicals as well: They once condemned Billy Graham as a “Hell-bound false prophet,” and they protested at Falwell’s funeral in 2007.

The Phelps clan has essentially made a business out of their work. Some members, including Phelps’ daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper—who showed up at Friday’s protest in sunglasses and a “Godhatesfags.com” tank top—are trained lawyers who work for the family’s law firm, Phelps-Chartered. They are known to sue aggressive counter-protestors and municipalities that fail to provide for their safety.

On the other hand, these veteran media hounds are able to escape accusations of committing hate speech by putting their hatred into God’s mouth. “We’re not judging anybody. God is,” said Jonah Phelps-Roper, a 12-year-old Westboro member carrying a red-white-and-blue colored sign saying, “ANTICHRIST OBAMA IS DOOMED.”

The Westboro members showed up at the corner of Russ and Park boulevards today—one of the first in a series of planned protests at high schools, Jewish centers and churches this weekend—just after 2 p.m., a few minutes before school let out. Posted kitty-corner to the school and often blocked by a throng of cars, their presence was barely registered by many of the students who began pouring out of the campus down Park Blvd. Of course, it helped that crowds of demonstrators espousing universal love filled every other street corner, drowning out the Westboro protests with chanting and drumming on pots and pans.

But it was still a media bonanza over at the Westboro corner. As the police tried to maintain order, photographers snapped pictures, cameras rolled and the Phelps disciples spewed their hyperbolic gospel in interviews. “Homosexuality is an abomination,” Shirley Phelps-Roper told a TV news reporter. “These children have been taught that God is a big, fat, stinking liar—that it is, in fact, OK to be gay. He says you’re going to Hell if you do that. They’ve been taught, ‘No, God is a liar.’”

At lunch earlier that day, many students were dismissive of the group. Westboro could hardly claim to have any fans at San Diego High School, which has its fair share of students who are queer-friendly, or have Roman-Catholic parents or relatives in the military, or all of the above. Lupe Brito, a junior at the School of Media, Visual and Performing Arts, one of the high school’s six “small schools,” had only one thing to say to the Westboro clan: “Get a life.”

But many students had been briefed about the protest in class, and members of the Gay Straight Alliance made their presence known when the protestors came—commandeering the school’s marquee at the corner of Park and Russ and covering it with a giant, hand-painted GSA sign. “They’re just invading our school,” said Jo Gookin, 17, president of the GSA. “This is a place of learning. It shouldn’t be brought here.”

All the same, some teachers considered the event a perfect “teachable moment”—a debate over the boundaries of free speech flaring up just outside the school’s gates. “I think that the students had a very good reaction to hearing about it. A lot of students were just really supportive of tolerance and equality,” said Kara Potter, a math teacher with purple hair who was standing with the equality crowd. “It brought up a good point for discussion.”

And what was the lesson for ninth grader David Jones? “Let people be who they are. Let them be free to express themselves,” he said. “Who am I to judge you? We’re all humans here.”

Photo: Shirley Phelps-Roper standing on the American flag and waving her signs. By Kelly Davis

“I Refuse To Lose!” - Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka's Poetic Revolution

This article was published in the October 2009 issue of The Brooklyn Rail. Photo by Benjamin Herson.

by Peter Holslin

Over thirty years have passed since Dambudzo Marechera wrote The House of Hunger, his landmark 1978 novella about the brutal relationships and decayed ideologies of colonial Rhodesia, the southern African nation now known as Zimbabwe. But hunger remains a common theme in Zimbabwean poetry and music, manifesting itself as both a metaphorical yearning for freedom from corruption and oppression, and as something quite literal: a desperate need for food.

Zimbabwe became independent in 1980, after a vicious liberation war, and the country became a model of economic prosperity in Africa. But true democratic freedoms have never been achieved under the leadership of President Robert Mugabe, a guerrilla leader turned dictator. And it feels as though the slam poet Comrade Fatso is continuing from where Marechera left off when he begins his own House of Hunger, an album of pointed rhymes and fresh grooves that’s being reissued online by Nomadic Wax, with the wanting words, “My belly wakes me again.”

Set during Operation Murambatsvina (or “Drive Out the Filth”)—a 2005 nationwide campaign in which soldiers and police demolished tens of thousands of houses and vending stands that the government deemed “illegal”—that opening track, “Bread & Roses,” captures both types of hunger. Fatso takes on the persona of a street vendor who watches as a policeman smashes her vegetables. “Here come the forces of good/ Those who wage war on food,” he says in his steady cadence.

I thought ours was the land of the fruits
Now crushed by these blind boots
Saying my food is dirty
No, my food is dignity
It sends my children to school, you see

“Comrade Fatso” is the performance name of Samm Farai Monro, a lean 29-year-old with long dreadlocks and a dry wit, who eats with his fingers and rhymes in a patois of English and Shona (the language of most Zimbabweans). The son of white community organizers born in Zimbabwe, he resists being sucked into the bitter identity politics that have haunted Zimbabwean activism over the past decade. “You have to deal with issues regarding color, but that’s not what’s at the core of our crisis,” he told me in a phone interview.

What does lie at its core, as he makes clear in House of Hunger, is a system of institutionalized patronage and state-sponsored violence that sustains the immense wealth of a minority of political elites and punishes those of the country’s 12 million people who want to build something better.

Monro is an avowed activist and experienced grassroots organizer—when he isn’t touring with his band, he’s working for Magamba!, a youth activism network that hosts a monthly spoken-word event and does outreach in economically disadvantaged townships. But House of Hunger is only political, at least with regard to government, in the sense that it was banned from state-controlled TV and radio broadcasts when it was first released in Zimbabwe in March 2008. At its core, the album is about personal relationships—and the unbreakable love, crushing poverty, dark humor, and shocking acts of violence that bind them.

Fatso’s verses often ooze anger and ache with pain. But the yearning vocal phrases of singers Chiwoniso Maraire and Nyengeterai Zembe, and the supple guitar, lustrous marimba, and mbira (an iron-pronged instrument played with the thumbs), and dynamic beats of Fatso’s band, Chabvondoka, inject the songs with positive energy. And even Fatso’s most mournful verses are followed with words full of hope and vision. “Here, those with hope and head / Are beaten, battered, left for dead,” he intones in the title track, over a slow groove with a somber guitar phrase and meditative mbira passage. After he dissects the House—“brick upon brick” of corruption, the “cement” of apathy, the kitchen where “chefs cook up feasts of famine”—he concludes, “It’s time to build a house for all / And it all starts if we stand tall.”

House of Hunger is similar to the driving mbira-style guitar songs of the legendary Thomas Mapfumo, who sang in support of the Zimbabwean liberation struggle during the war. But today, Fatso and other radical performance poets engage in non-violent battle with toyi-toyi, a leg-kicking revolutionary dance invented during the liberation war, which anti-apartheid activists later adopted in South Africa. At shows, the poets are energized when their audiences toyi-toyi. “It’s just a beautiful state to be in,” Leslie Tongai Makawa, a fellow slam poet who helps run Magamba!, told me in April in Washington, D.C., before playing a concert as part of an East Coast tour with Fatso and Chabvondoka. “You’re saying, ‘I refuse to lose!’”

The concert, performed in a large room of a church-owned building, was held on the 29th anniversary of Zimbabwe’s independence. After Chabvondoka launched into a sweltering jam at the end of their set, Fatso broke into a passionate toyi-toyi. Dozens of Africans and Americans in the packed audience spontaneously rose from their seats to boogie. The feeling of joy was as palpable as the smell of Zimbabwean food—cornmeal, beef, and collard greens—wafting in from the lobby: a deep hunger satiated, at least for that night.

Last playlist

Last week was devoted to lasts--last chance to eat Ray's greasy pizza, Vanessa's addictive pork dumplings, Panade's perfect muffins, and Africa Kine's awesome Senegalese food; to hang out and goof off and take in New York's frenetic energy. I've eaten delicious farewell dinners and I've received heartfelt goodbyes. Tomorrow evening, after five wonderful years of living in New York City, I will be back in my hometown of San Diego, California.

One of my best friends just told me to make a playlist for the plane ride. I thought I couldn't handle that. But once we said goodbye and I hung up, it occurred to me that that's exactly the kind of thing I should do. So here it is, my last playlist in NYC. When I put it on as the plane begins to take off (rules be damned!), it should make for an invigorating and possibly tearful listen:

1. "Rumors" - Cheb Khaled & Cheba Zahouania (Together)
2. "San Jose Fight Song" - Ten In The Swear Jar (Accordion Solo!)
3. "Choufi" - Abderrahmane Djalti (Choufi)
4. "Vinon So Minsou" - Ouinsou Corneille & Black Santiagos (African Scream Contest)
5. "K-Force" - The Vision (Waveform Transmission Vol. 2)
6. "Techno Dread" - 2562 (Aerial)
7. "A Little Lost" - Arthur Russell (The World Of Arthur Russell)
8. "I Don't Play The Drumz" - Ten In The Swear Jar (Accordion Solo!)
9. "Conspirer" - Luciano (Tribute To The Sun)
10. "Bread & Roses" - Comrade Fatso & Chabvondoka feat. Chiwoniso (House Of Hunger)
11. "Teerera" - Max Wild feat. Oliver Mtukudzi (Teerera single)
12. "Segue Bezikh" - Unknown Artist (Choubi Choubi [Folk & Pop Sounds from Iraq])
13. "Leh Jani" - Omar Souleyman (Highway To Hassake [Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria])
14. "Waldiha" - Cheb Tarik (Algerian Raï)
15. "Right?Star!" - Martyn (Great Lengths)
16. "Brand New Day" - Dizzee Rascal (Boy In Da Corner)
17. "Fly" - Two Eyes Meet Redux (Pop Songs On Illusions And Tragedies)

Kimi Djabaté, Karam (Cumbancha; 2009)

This review was posted to Cokemachineglow.com today:

Kimi Djabaté
Karam
(Cumbancha; 2009)
Rating: 70%

Kimi Djabaté, a griot from the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, was literally born to play music. Hailing from Tabato, a village famous for its griots—hereditary bards charged with telling the oral history of their tribe—he first learned to play the balafón, a resonant African xylophone, when he was three years old. From there, he learned to play kora (an African harp), various traditional percussion instruments, and guitar. But being a talented musician in a poor musical family had its drawbacks: he was often forced to sing and dance for money.

Djabaté has lived in Portugal since 1994, which led to another set of struggles. This personal history resonates through his second solo album, Karam, in unexpected ways. Its fifteen tracks are guided as much by layers of percussion and glossy stringed instruments as Djabaté’s longing lyrics, giving an otherwise uplifting set of songs a somber quality. “Mulo-nhaneta / Mulo-torrota-je,” Djabaté sings in the title track, in his native language of Mandingo. As bright strands of kora (African harp) and acoustic guitar float over an upbeat rhythm, these lyrics offer a sobering reminder: they roughly mean, “People suffer so much / It’s a tiring experience.”

Following the griot tradition, many of Djabaté’s songs pay tribute to important people—his mother (“Ná”), a strong woman named Fatumata (“Fatu”), a man who has lost his wife (“Dabô”). Using the tribute song as a framework for discussing society, he highlights the inequality that many contemporary Africans face, critiquing male chauvinism, misogyny, economic inequality, and ethnic prejudice. But the music is often simultaneously sad and beautiful: over the sublimely slow beat and wandering balafón of “Mogolu,” a chorus intones, “Yo mogolu mancaynhan”—“How come some have so much and others have nothing?” In that way, Karam is anything but hopeless. Indeed, more than once, Djabaté tells the listener, “Dance!”—and tracks like “Mussolu” and “Manla,” with their invigorating Latin-style grooves, are perfect for doing just that.

The slow, elongated woodwind refrain of “Kodé” exemplifies the suffering that Africa has experienced over the years: the strident anthem of African independence fifty years ago has evolved into a funereal dirge. In recent months, Guinea-Bissau itself has endured shocking political instability. With Karam, Djabaté highlights the kinds of prejudice that have contributed to this suffering. But his music feels like a kind of salve, glowing with optimism over words aching with sadness.

:: myspace.com/kimidjabate

Various Artists, Shadow Music of Thailand (Sublime Frequencies; 2009)

This review was posted on Cokemachineglow.com Friday:

Various Artists

Shadow Music of Thailand
(Sublime Frequencies; 2009)

Rating: 70%

Sublime Frequencies releases aren’t particularly thorough or edifying—with their cut-and-paste cover designs and scattershot liner notes, often they’re as makeshift as the woefully ignored or long-forgotten strains of global music they present. Of course, this is partly what makes these releases so remarkable and alluring. The dogs that some men are, sometimes all a record might need is a picture of two pretty Thai women in tiny dresses on the cover—as is the case with the 2007 comp Thai Pop Spectacular—and it’s sold. Then again, there are also serious music geeks who would simply be wooed by an intriguing title like Shadow Music of Thailand.

This compilation, which was released as a limited edition LP last year, isn’t nearly as party hardy as the label’s other recent releases (Omar Souleyman’s Dabke 2020 and Group Doueh’s Treeg Salaam), but it’s just as distinct. The comp’s seventeen tracks, many of them clocking in at under three minutes, document a uniquely Thai style of garage rock from the ’60s known as “shadow music,” named after the UK’s sly instrumental band the Shadows. In a way, the “shadow music” here is comparable to popular songs by Ethiopian artists like Tilahun Gessesse, who incorporated the pentatonic scale and traditional melodies into Afro-funk. Only in this case, Thailand’s regal folk melodies are employed to make something slower and headier, more akin to surf-rock.

The musicianship feels amateurish throughout, and the comp features more than a few janky guitar solos, but there is a worldliness and flexibility to these songs that make some of them infectious. The Son of P.M., one of several bands put together by the prominent singer and composer Payong Mukda, makes a psychedelic Latin-style groove in “Plaeng Yiepoun,” its lithe organ melody leading Latin-inflected rhythm guitar and gleaming xylophone chords. In “Pone Tala Pone (Indian),” a reverb-drenched guitar phrase melds with vaguely Eastern drumming and melismatic vocals, making for something strange and heady. In “Lao Kratob Mai,” Johnny Guitar creates an indigenous feel with a meditatively plodding beat, an ornamental xylophone melody and warm organ fills, but the band mixes things up by tossing in a grizzled and psychedelic guitar solo.

Sublime Frequencies got plenty of attention earlier this year when they hosted a UK and European tour that put Souleyman and Group Doueh in the same bill—making an irresistible and otherwise unlikely combination of gritty Syrian dabke and hypnotic guitar music from the Sahara Desert. But the label’s strongest point has always been its releases of splendid and obscure music from Southeast Asia. In that respect, Shadow Music of Thailand certainly gives the Khmer Rocks label’s Cambodian Rocks series a run for it’s money.

:: sublimefrequencies.com

Track Review: "Putcha Handz Up"

CLP f/ Rayzaflo :: "Putcha Handz Up"
From BASSS Brains (Brd Basss Germany; 2009)

Germans make stunning graffiti, but their hip-hop doesn’t have the best reputation. Unimpressed with the country’s heavy-handed gangsta rap, the production duo CLP—Chris de Luca and Phon.o—has teamed up instead with American and South African MCs more familiar with funky grooves. In “Putcha Handz Up,” rhymes are contributed by a stylish teenage MC from Jackson, Mississippi. And it’s no surprise that somebody who describes herself on Myspace as “HUMAN CRACK N THA FLESH” can make this track ooze with crunked aggression.

The point of putting your hands up isn’t necessarily clear. Where Cypress Hill’s “Throw Your Hands In The Air” conveyed a certain conviviality with its laid-back groove, and Danzel’s “Put Your Hands Up in the Air” exudes hype with its pulsating synths and mindless repetition, “Putcha Handz Up” makes a severe demand: “Getcha mothafuckin’ hands up.” Confronted with a slamming beat, a leering sample of what sounds like a plucked string, and Rayzaflo’s rapid-fire rhymes, you might wonder what’s coming to you if you don’t put those hands up. A Courvoisier bottle to the face, maybe?

:: myspace.com/rayzaflo

The Best Business Names in America

As an employee at a stationery and toy company, it is my job to get in touch with a limitless array of American businesses: gift shops, toy stores, pharmacies, hospital shops, wineries, camps, Audubon societies, car washes, general stores, specialty stores, boutiques, etc. Needless to say, in my work I come across a lot of different business names, some of them so unique and fantastic that they are worth publishing here for posterity. For everyone's enjoyment and inspiration, here is list No. 5, compiling the best of what I've come across most recently:

Heavenly Outhouse

Enchanted Closet

Wearable Vegetables

Uncommon Scents

Pull Yourself Together

Bed Bath n’ Bonz Inc.

Chubby Cherub

Bohemian Angel

The Flying Mule

The Flying Carp

Wacky Rabbit

Upstart Crow

Paper Tyger

Happy Owl, Too!!!

The Mugger

Tough Luck Cowboy

Jealous Gardener

Sugar Daddy’s

Real Baby

Bayou Baby

Hipster Kids

Author Squad LLC

The Booklegger

Valiant for Truth Bookstore

A Great Good Place for Books

A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books

Wild Card

Plum Crazy

Eclecticity

Chez Weenie

Wooden Heart

Blackmail

Avant Garden

Smile Herb Shop

Beastly Bites

You-Nique Bow-Tique

Marsha's Vineyard

Wallpaper History Society