Po boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Blame My Mama
Or
The Essence Primer
Welcome to Essence! Boy, do we have a time in for you, and yes, you may make it back to wherever you come from in one piece. I hope so.
Some have been here before. Many have not. This column is to try to school you on the ways of the Big Easy and how to avoid growth experiences that you may wish to postpone, possibly for some future incarnation.
Fact one: everyone in New Orleans is running a hustle of one kind or another, it’s how we make a living. You see, out of town visitors are basically our only source of income. From experience I can swear that our folks will accept your last nickel whether you are willing to part with it or not. Don’t feel special, we do the same to each other and we smart locals have perfected the art of simultaneously holding on to our wallets, watching our backs and not believing everything we’re told by strangers. But, being the homicide capitol of the country indicates to me that not all of us are quick studies.
I’m told that it is refreshing to find such a major city steeped in black culture and as you see us going about our daily business you may want to consider that with our quaint third world attitude, a certain plantation mentality can sometimes be seen slipping through the façade. But face it, you probably can’t offer better where you come from, hey? But, we are special; we rock twenty four seven, you can drink in public, gamble your hard earned away and go to church, oftentimes on the same street. They say that shame and pride are two sides of the same coin; you’ll be hard pressed to find that coin in any of our pockets.
Oh, there are optimists here…somewhere, and if you see trash on the street, people spitting, car music blaring and the occasional sound of gunfire or sirens; please be assured that we don’t like it any more than you do, but we weren’t taught any better manners. Blame it on the lead-based paint.
You may think that we can’t find correct fitting trousers for our young men. Not true. Wearing pants six sizes too large, holding them up by the crotch and walking as if you have diaper rash is a ‘style’. Why? Got me! There is an elected official that has proposed a law against it and we don’t know which is the more ridiculous.
As far as national averages are concerned we rank just above an andouille sausage in intelligence here; although, I would not live anywhere else even if you could find me a job. And yes, unemployment is an issue here, so we’re building more hotels and expanding the convention center to put more unskilled locals to work, of which there are more than a few.
Speaking of personal safety, take a lesson from the natives: don’t wear beads, walk on unlit streets, get drunk in pubic or consider that friendly stranger your new best friend. Don’t take money out in an uncontrolled environment; I keep different denominations of bills in different pockets to be ready for different purchasing situations: I don’t pull out a wad of twenties for a cup of coffee or a pack of smokes. ‘Nuf said.
Drinking alcohol here is expected, encouraged and invited at every turn you take and with that comes an element of our population ready to take full advantage of your lack of experience and vulnerability. And I know that it would be really cool to follow your new friend up the street for ‘a little something extra’… don’t. I’ve found more than a few discarded wallets on the street on Sunday morning, not surprisingly with out of town driver’s licenses and no money.
Speaking of driving, you may also may want to know that this city makes an awful lot of money on parking tickets and the towing of illegally parked vehicles. Read posted signs and under no circumstances park within twenty feet from any street corner. Period.
Also, on our streets you’ll see and smell urine, blood, vomit, syringes, condoms and glass from car break-ins; it’s something us residents have gotten used to, would like to change and don’t often boast about. When you have tourism, poverty and ignorance in the same mix, it’s bound to happen. Consider us a dysfunctional Disneyworld.
You really have the opportunity of having a wonderfully great time here, there’s music everywhere, gaiety and laughter; just don’t get stupid on us; you can get yourself hurt and somebody can land in jail.
Now here’s my disclaimer. I write this column monthly and I am fortunate to have editors that allow me to air my views about this city and related subjects. More than once I have pissed someone off and I’ll apologize in advance if this be the case with you. Once again I hope that the powers that be will read me and ask me for suggestions, so far as I know they haven’t and I’ve given up expecting them to. I love this city, but as I tell people, living here is like taking a warm bubble bath with a martini and a snake.
Everyone that I know or have talked to can relate an experience with someone unlawfully or inconsiderately interfering with their peacefully inclined lifestyle. It’s a fact of life here. For a glowing example I suggest that while you’re here, pick up our daily newspaper and read the Metro section. You will see our daily reports of crime and in the obituaries see another one of our citizens felled by violence. Multiply that by three hundred sixty five and you have the Big Easy quality of life.
So go and enjoy the Essence Festival. Attend a motivational seminar, it’s the only time of year that we have them on that scale. Then go home where often as not you may not have to lock your house, your car, your bike or your heart. Just for God’s sake be careful out there.
plamancusa@aol.com
Showing posts with label Essence Fest New Orleans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Essence Fest New Orleans. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Essence 2003
Po ‘ Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Essence Stew
Or
A White Boy Caught In The Blues
The 2003 Essence Music Festival is here and it’s sponsored by Coca-Cola. That says a lot to me, although I don’t know what. Perhaps I’m unclear on the focus of the event; I mean, is the purpose of the ‘Party With A Purpose’ to party or to pursue purposes? I seem to recall (here I go again) that when I was first made aware of this event, it was described as a convention by and for African Americans to network, share experiences, and to work on/out cultural, political and economic challenges mutually exclusive to African Americans. Music was thrown in to help unwind after a day chock full of workshops and empowerment seminars. I don’t know, I’ve never been to Essence. I guess I felt like it was a place that an old white guy would be out of place in. It’s just that I don’t remember it as being…commercialized.
So, here I go, ready to pull my foot out of my mouth (where it’s sure to wind up) and write, again, about something I know nothing about. I may even have to get ready to ingest a little crow.
I have the credentials of the un-empowered. I was raised inner city, in the projects, on welfare, broken home, physical abuse, public schools…the works. But I’m not a person of color; in essence, I’m not black and have no birthright to the blues. And while my ‘roots’ did not fling open the doors of an affluent mover/shaker American society, many of those doors were left ajar, mainly because of my color, or lack of it. The same cannot be said for my many colored friends. As much as we need workshops now, we needed them more then, and, maybe if we had had them then, we wouldn’t need them now. Hmmmm.
Ask random New Orleanians about Essence and they’ll probably confuse it with Bayou Classic, which is mistakenly likened to a Mau Mau uprising. Am I prejudiced? Are we prejudiced in the Big Easy? Are we prejudiced in the South? Hell, while we’re asking, are we prejudiced at all in the good old Yew Ess of A? The answer is a resounding NO! (Anyone heard of ‘Racial Profiling’ though? Shhhhhh!)
One restaurant manager (White) explained to me that it wasn’t the out of towners that caused trouble. It was ‘our’ blacks coming in to prey on their own, or ‘them’ (black people in general are referred to as ‘them’ or ‘those people’ by whites). The restaurant was going along at a good clip that night, if I recall; but, when the call came in that it was “getting dark” up the street, we promptly closed.
Recently a woman (Black), who is much more intelligent and articulate than I am, made the point that Essence was a good thing…for the tourist industry. She also pointed out that the seminars and workshops did have a positive effect…for those that attended. We agreed that, in essence, it could be called a “Black Jazz Festival”. If she ever runs for office, she’s got my vote.
One point is that it’s easy for the rest of the population to make assumptions about African Americans. Blacks generally don’t go explaining their ‘Blackness’ to us dumb Crackers, or anyone else for that matter. We get our information from the examples that are set in public, and, the media. We are left to draw our own conclusions. Our conclusions generally run the gamut from Jack the Ripper (they haven’t proven that he wasn’t of color) to the idiots on Sanford and Son.
Well let me tell you: I don’t go there. If there are any Blacks that read this column, (gotcha!) let me tug on your coattail. I personally have seen persons of color ordering meat cooked medium rare, wine other than white Zinfandel, and then tip grandly. I know Black people who can’t dance, don’t spit, do vote, hold down steady jobs, marry and are faithful to their spouses, and don’t wear their trousers with their undies showing. I personally have seen a look of disgust cross a brother’s face when I mentioned that I actually liked pigs feet! And look, if I don’t say that some of my best friends are Black, it’s because I have no best friends. Hell, I’m as liberal as anybody else! It’s just that I don’t know who these people are!
If you saw me get out of my Eminem blaring ride, in FUBUs, with my baseball cap on sideways, gold crucifix around my neck, drinking a 40, smoking a blunt and grabbing at my crotch would you take me for a ‘Brutha of Anotha Mutha’? Probably not.
I know what I’d take me for: someone who needed to turn that damn music down and get to a seminar because I’d obviously got Black mixed up with stupid. But heck, a lot of folks display, in their image, their level of intelligence.
That also goes for overweight hicks in Mickey Mouse shirts, Asians that dye their hair blond, white kid pierced/tattooed gutter punks, Italian stallion goombahs, war perpetuating nationalists, public drunks, misogynists, self-serving hypocritical evangelists, people that take unfair advantage, plantation mentality bosses, breast beating liberals, those that don’t play fair, and Albanians in general.
But I’m not prejudiced.
I like to think of myself as… biased.
A while ago Calvin told Hobbes that he was writing a self help book called “Shut Up And Stop Whining: How To Do Something In Your Life Besides Think About Yourself”. Hobbes advised “You should probably wait for the advance before you buy anything.”
I’ll go one better: “It’s The Twenty-first Century: Stop wearing Other Peoples’ Names On Your Clothing” Or “Behave Like You ARE A Song In The Key Of Life. There’s still a lot of work to do”.
But that’s just my opinion.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Essence Stew
Or
A White Boy Caught In The Blues
The 2003 Essence Music Festival is here and it’s sponsored by Coca-Cola. That says a lot to me, although I don’t know what. Perhaps I’m unclear on the focus of the event; I mean, is the purpose of the ‘Party With A Purpose’ to party or to pursue purposes? I seem to recall (here I go again) that when I was first made aware of this event, it was described as a convention by and for African Americans to network, share experiences, and to work on/out cultural, political and economic challenges mutually exclusive to African Americans. Music was thrown in to help unwind after a day chock full of workshops and empowerment seminars. I don’t know, I’ve never been to Essence. I guess I felt like it was a place that an old white guy would be out of place in. It’s just that I don’t remember it as being…commercialized.
So, here I go, ready to pull my foot out of my mouth (where it’s sure to wind up) and write, again, about something I know nothing about. I may even have to get ready to ingest a little crow.
I have the credentials of the un-empowered. I was raised inner city, in the projects, on welfare, broken home, physical abuse, public schools…the works. But I’m not a person of color; in essence, I’m not black and have no birthright to the blues. And while my ‘roots’ did not fling open the doors of an affluent mover/shaker American society, many of those doors were left ajar, mainly because of my color, or lack of it. The same cannot be said for my many colored friends. As much as we need workshops now, we needed them more then, and, maybe if we had had them then, we wouldn’t need them now. Hmmmm.
Ask random New Orleanians about Essence and they’ll probably confuse it with Bayou Classic, which is mistakenly likened to a Mau Mau uprising. Am I prejudiced? Are we prejudiced in the Big Easy? Are we prejudiced in the South? Hell, while we’re asking, are we prejudiced at all in the good old Yew Ess of A? The answer is a resounding NO! (Anyone heard of ‘Racial Profiling’ though? Shhhhhh!)
One restaurant manager (White) explained to me that it wasn’t the out of towners that caused trouble. It was ‘our’ blacks coming in to prey on their own, or ‘them’ (black people in general are referred to as ‘them’ or ‘those people’ by whites). The restaurant was going along at a good clip that night, if I recall; but, when the call came in that it was “getting dark” up the street, we promptly closed.
Recently a woman (Black), who is much more intelligent and articulate than I am, made the point that Essence was a good thing…for the tourist industry. She also pointed out that the seminars and workshops did have a positive effect…for those that attended. We agreed that, in essence, it could be called a “Black Jazz Festival”. If she ever runs for office, she’s got my vote.
One point is that it’s easy for the rest of the population to make assumptions about African Americans. Blacks generally don’t go explaining their ‘Blackness’ to us dumb Crackers, or anyone else for that matter. We get our information from the examples that are set in public, and, the media. We are left to draw our own conclusions. Our conclusions generally run the gamut from Jack the Ripper (they haven’t proven that he wasn’t of color) to the idiots on Sanford and Son.
Well let me tell you: I don’t go there. If there are any Blacks that read this column, (gotcha!) let me tug on your coattail. I personally have seen persons of color ordering meat cooked medium rare, wine other than white Zinfandel, and then tip grandly. I know Black people who can’t dance, don’t spit, do vote, hold down steady jobs, marry and are faithful to their spouses, and don’t wear their trousers with their undies showing. I personally have seen a look of disgust cross a brother’s face when I mentioned that I actually liked pigs feet! And look, if I don’t say that some of my best friends are Black, it’s because I have no best friends. Hell, I’m as liberal as anybody else! It’s just that I don’t know who these people are!
If you saw me get out of my Eminem blaring ride, in FUBUs, with my baseball cap on sideways, gold crucifix around my neck, drinking a 40, smoking a blunt and grabbing at my crotch would you take me for a ‘Brutha of Anotha Mutha’? Probably not.
I know what I’d take me for: someone who needed to turn that damn music down and get to a seminar because I’d obviously got Black mixed up with stupid. But heck, a lot of folks display, in their image, their level of intelligence.
That also goes for overweight hicks in Mickey Mouse shirts, Asians that dye their hair blond, white kid pierced/tattooed gutter punks, Italian stallion goombahs, war perpetuating nationalists, public drunks, misogynists, self-serving hypocritical evangelists, people that take unfair advantage, plantation mentality bosses, breast beating liberals, those that don’t play fair, and Albanians in general.
But I’m not prejudiced.
I like to think of myself as… biased.
A while ago Calvin told Hobbes that he was writing a self help book called “Shut Up And Stop Whining: How To Do Something In Your Life Besides Think About Yourself”. Hobbes advised “You should probably wait for the advance before you buy anything.”
I’ll go one better: “It’s The Twenty-first Century: Stop wearing Other Peoples’ Names On Your Clothing” Or “Behave Like You ARE A Song In The Key Of Life. There’s still a lot of work to do”.
But that’s just my opinion.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Essence Fest New Orleans
Or
A White Boy Caught In The Blues
The 2003 Essence Music Festival is here and it’s sponsored by Coca-Cola. That says a lot to me, although I don’t know what. Perhaps I’m unclear on the focus of the event; I mean, is the purpose of the ‘Party With A Purpose’ to party or to pursue purposes? I seem to recall (here I go again) that when I was first made aware of this event, it was described as a convention by and for African Americans to network, share experiences, and to work on/out cultural, political and economic challenges mutually exclusive to African Americans. Music was thrown in to help unwind after a day chock full of workshops and empowerment seminars. I don’t know, I’ve never been to Essence. I guess I felt like it was a place that an old white guy would be out of place in. It’s just that I don’t remember it as being…commercialized.
So, here I go, ready to pull my foot out of my mouth (where it’s sure to wind up) and write, again, about something I know nothing about. I may even have to get ready to ingest a little crow.
I have the credentials of the un-empowered. I was raised inner city, in the projects, on welfare, broken home, physical abuse, public schools…the works. But I’m not a person of color; in essence, I’m not black and have no birthright to the blues. And while my ‘roots’ did not fling open the doors of an affluent mover/shaker American society, many of those doors were left ajar, mainly because of my color, or lack of it. The same cannot be said for my many colored friends. As much as we need workshops now, we needed them more then, and, maybe if we had had them then, we wouldn’t need them now. Hmmmm.
Ask random New Orleanians about Essence and they’ll probably confuse it with Bayou Classic, which is mistakenly likened to a Mau Mau uprising. Am I prejudiced? Are we prejudiced in the Big Easy? Are we prejudiced in the South? Hell, while we’re asking, are we prejudiced at all in the good old Yew Ess of A? The answer is a resounding NO! (Anyone heard of ‘Racial Profiling’ though? Shhhhhh!)
One restaurant manager (White) explained to me that it wasn’t the out of towners that caused trouble. It was ‘our’ blacks coming in to prey on their own, or ‘them’ (black people in general are referred to as ‘them’ or ‘those people’ by whites). The restaurant was going along at a good clip that night, if I recall; but, when the call came in that it was “getting dark” up the street, we promptly closed.
Recently a woman (Black), who is much more intelligent and articulate than I am, made the point that Essence was a good thing…for the tourist industry. She also pointed out that the seminars and workshops did have a positive effect…for those that attended. We agreed that, in essence, it could be called a “Black Jazz Festival”. If she ever runs for office, she’s got my vote.
One point is that it’s easy for the rest of the population to make assumptions about African Americans. Blacks generally don’t go explaining their ‘Blackness’ to us dumb Crackers, or anyone else for that matter. We get our information from the examples that are set in public, and, the media. We are left to draw our own conclusions. Our conclusions generally run the gamut from Jack the Ripper (they haven’t proven that he wasn’t of color) to the idiots on Sanford and Son.
Well let me tell you: I don’t go there. If there are any Blacks that read this column, (gotcha!) let me tug on your coattail. I personally have seen persons of color ordering meat cooked medium rare, wine other than white Zinfandel, and then tip grandly. I know Black people who can’t dance, don’t spit, do vote, hold down steady jobs, marry and are faithful to their spouses, and don’t wear their trousers with their undies showing. I personally have seen a look of disgust cross a brother’s face when I mentioned that I actually liked pigs feet! And look, if I don’t say that some of my best friends are Black, it’s because I have no best friends. Hell, I’m as liberal as anybody else! It’s just that I don’t know who these people are!
If you saw me get out of my Eminem blaring ride, in FUBUs, with my baseball cap on sideways, gold crucifix around my neck, drinking a 40, smoking a blunt and grabbing at my crotch would you take me for a ‘Brutha of Anotha Mutha’? Probably not.
I know what I’d take me for: someone who needed to turn that damn music down and get to a seminar because I’d obviously got Black mixed up with stupid. But heck, a lot of folks display, in their image, their level of intelligence.
That also goes for overweight hicks in Mickey Mouse shirts, Asians that dye their hair blond, white kid pierced/tattooed gutter punks, Italian stallion goombahs, war perpetuating nationalists, public drunks, misogynists, self-serving hypocritical evangelists, people that take unfair advantage, plantation mentality bosses, breast beating liberals, those that don’t play fair, and Albanians in general.
But I’m not prejudiced.
I like to think of myself as… biased.
A while ago Calvin told Hobbes that he was writing a self help book called “Shut Up And Stop Whining: How To Do Something In Your Life Besides Think About Yourself”. Hobbes advised “You should probably wait for the advance before you buy anything.”
I’ll go one better: “It’s The Twenty-first Century: Stop wearing Other Peoples’ Names On Your Clothing” Or “Behave Like You ARE A Song In The Key Of Life. There’s still a lot of work to do”.
But that’s just my opinion.
A White Boy Caught In The Blues
The 2003 Essence Music Festival is here and it’s sponsored by Coca-Cola. That says a lot to me, although I don’t know what. Perhaps I’m unclear on the focus of the event; I mean, is the purpose of the ‘Party With A Purpose’ to party or to pursue purposes? I seem to recall (here I go again) that when I was first made aware of this event, it was described as a convention by and for African Americans to network, share experiences, and to work on/out cultural, political and economic challenges mutually exclusive to African Americans. Music was thrown in to help unwind after a day chock full of workshops and empowerment seminars. I don’t know, I’ve never been to Essence. I guess I felt like it was a place that an old white guy would be out of place in. It’s just that I don’t remember it as being…commercialized.
So, here I go, ready to pull my foot out of my mouth (where it’s sure to wind up) and write, again, about something I know nothing about. I may even have to get ready to ingest a little crow.
I have the credentials of the un-empowered. I was raised inner city, in the projects, on welfare, broken home, physical abuse, public schools…the works. But I’m not a person of color; in essence, I’m not black and have no birthright to the blues. And while my ‘roots’ did not fling open the doors of an affluent mover/shaker American society, many of those doors were left ajar, mainly because of my color, or lack of it. The same cannot be said for my many colored friends. As much as we need workshops now, we needed them more then, and, maybe if we had had them then, we wouldn’t need them now. Hmmmm.
Ask random New Orleanians about Essence and they’ll probably confuse it with Bayou Classic, which is mistakenly likened to a Mau Mau uprising. Am I prejudiced? Are we prejudiced in the Big Easy? Are we prejudiced in the South? Hell, while we’re asking, are we prejudiced at all in the good old Yew Ess of A? The answer is a resounding NO! (Anyone heard of ‘Racial Profiling’ though? Shhhhhh!)
One restaurant manager (White) explained to me that it wasn’t the out of towners that caused trouble. It was ‘our’ blacks coming in to prey on their own, or ‘them’ (black people in general are referred to as ‘them’ or ‘those people’ by whites). The restaurant was going along at a good clip that night, if I recall; but, when the call came in that it was “getting dark” up the street, we promptly closed.
Recently a woman (Black), who is much more intelligent and articulate than I am, made the point that Essence was a good thing…for the tourist industry. She also pointed out that the seminars and workshops did have a positive effect…for those that attended. We agreed that, in essence, it could be called a “Black Jazz Festival”. If she ever runs for office, she’s got my vote.
One point is that it’s easy for the rest of the population to make assumptions about African Americans. Blacks generally don’t go explaining their ‘Blackness’ to us dumb Crackers, or anyone else for that matter. We get our information from the examples that are set in public, and, the media. We are left to draw our own conclusions. Our conclusions generally run the gamut from Jack the Ripper (they haven’t proven that he wasn’t of color) to the idiots on Sanford and Son.
Well let me tell you: I don’t go there. If there are any Blacks that read this column, (gotcha!) let me tug on your coattail. I personally have seen persons of color ordering meat cooked medium rare, wine other than white Zinfandel, and then tip grandly. I know Black people who can’t dance, don’t spit, do vote, hold down steady jobs, marry and are faithful to their spouses, and don’t wear their trousers with their undies showing. I personally have seen a look of disgust cross a brother’s face when I mentioned that I actually liked pigs feet! And look, if I don’t say that some of my best friends are Black, it’s because I have no best friends. Hell, I’m as liberal as anybody else! It’s just that I don’t know who these people are!
If you saw me get out of my Eminem blaring ride, in FUBUs, with my baseball cap on sideways, gold crucifix around my neck, drinking a 40, smoking a blunt and grabbing at my crotch would you take me for a ‘Brutha of Anotha Mutha’? Probably not.
I know what I’d take me for: someone who needed to turn that damn music down and get to a seminar because I’d obviously got Black mixed up with stupid. But heck, a lot of folks display, in their image, their level of intelligence.
That also goes for overweight hicks in Mickey Mouse shirts, Asians that dye their hair blond, white kid pierced/tattooed gutter punks, Italian stallion goombahs, war perpetuating nationalists, public drunks, misogynists, self-serving hypocritical evangelists, people that take unfair advantage, plantation mentality bosses, breast beating liberals, those that don’t play fair, and Albanians in general.
But I’m not prejudiced.
I like to think of myself as… biased.
A while ago Calvin told Hobbes that he was writing a self help book called “Shut Up And Stop Whining: How To Do Something In Your Life Besides Think About Yourself”. Hobbes advised “You should probably wait for the advance before you buy anything.”
I’ll go one better: “It’s The Twenty-first Century: Stop wearing Other Peoples’ Names On Your Clothing” Or “Behave Like You ARE A Song In The Key Of Life. There’s still a lot of work to do”.
But that’s just my opinion.
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