October 2006

 

 

 

Books baby Books!!!
Books! Books! Books by books.
Books. Buy books.
Books! Books! Books!
The West Hollywood Book Fair was beautiful. Authors, bookstores, publishers, agents, live readings, food, kiosks, so many activities. Held @ West Hollywood Park on Sunday September 17th, a good time was had by all.
Books!! Books!!

 I was a part of a panel BEATS, RAPS & RANTS: Hip-Hop in Prose, Poetry and Spoken Word:
Saul Williams (The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop)
Mike Sonksen & JAIR
Moderator: Donnell Alexander (Ghetto Celebrity: Searching for My Father in Me)

 Big respect to Donnell Alexander. Donnell is a veteran writer of fierce prose. For over a decade he's written big stories in the LA Weekly, LA Citybeat, the Times, ESPN & on & on. DonneLL is an old school writer from the Upton Sinclair muckraker school. He gives you the blood & bones of the story with prose that doesn't quit. His book Ghetto Celebrity was highly lauded. His next book promises to be even stronger.

 Saul Williams was also on the panel. Saul is always brilliant. I've given Saul props so many times that to say anything today would be repetitive. He is a leviathan.

 Luis Rodriguez was in the tent, as were poets like Beau Sia, Suheir Hammad, PhiLLHarmoniC, Rich Ferguson, Ernest Hardy. Lots of great folks!

 Here's a shout for Ratpack Slim. The poet born as Rob Sturma hosts Green every Monday in Culver City with DJ Jedi of the Digable Planets & Joshua Silverstein, the superstar beatboxer. Slim is a great writer. His voice is awesome. Poems, prose, screenplays, comics. Slim can write it all & make you laugh your ass off. I reconnected with Ratpack Slim in September & he was better than ever.

 Nicole D. Sconiers is another monster. Poet, novelist, screenwriter. Her new novel is called Resurrecion of Vida. It's a true novel. "A militant Mexican Poet, a dysfunctional black diva," it's romance in the 21st Century city. Westside story Poetry. Nicole is a postmodern throwback. Her poems are powerful & she's precise with storytelling.

 For those that have yet to hear about Sarah Cruse, the time is now. Sarah has been out of college for a few years now & now with her own weekly gig on Tuesdays she is getting her poetic crush on more than ever.  The night she hosts is called the Organic Soul Movement. It's a real off the hook event. Sarah's close homegirl DJ Melaaza mixes records before during & after. It's always jammin'. Their third partner is graphic designer Erika Herod. It's a weekly Tuesday event. Great poets like Busstop Prophet, Mark Gonzales, Carla Vega, Besskepp & Bomani have been hitting it. Sarah Cruse has recently joined The Enlightenment Project.

 The show began without warning. The music video for "The Hurricane Song" came on the screen while the beautiful Allen Watty R&B tune blasted through the P.A. Not a word was spoken inside Industry Cafe & Jazz in Culver City CA. As the music faded, Carvell Holloway walked from the back, playing a mournful version of "When the Saints Come Marching In" on his trumpet. At the mic, singer Ernie Perez denounced the shameful treatment of Katrina victims before launching into the song, backed by the furious drumming of K-Ci and Jo-Jo's Michael Sulcer.

 Then co-hosts Sarah Cruse and Luis Rodriguez welcomed everyone in the packed club (people milled around outside all night trying in vain to get in). Luis performed a piece which challenged artists to use their words as weapons and that's just what they did.

 Poetry. Singer-songwriters. Hip-hop. Combinations of them all. Artists from Azerbaijan. From Pakistan. From Russia. From Compton. From San Jose and San Diego. From America's Indian reservations. There was a psychiatrist at the mic, not to mention a bus stop prophet and a seer from Pomona. A poet named Mike the Poet, a painter named Philharmonic, and a bass player named Black Spinach.

 It was loud but you could hear a pin drop. It was hot and stuffy but very cool. Then, right in the middle of the evening, just in time to hold up the tent of the Organic Soul Movement on this wild night of creativity, there was a special guest who'd come all the way from Philadelphia: Cheri Honkala, director of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign.

 I met the great poet Tony Barnstone when we both threw down @ Rhapsadomancy. Barnstone is a professor @ Whittier College & has close to a dozen books. Poetry, fiction & translations. Tony is a writer's writer & a lot of fun to listen to. I enjoyed his book of poems, Sad Jazz.

 Another badass poet is Rich Ferguson. I first heard this dude when he made his poem "Bones," a short film. I saw it a few years ago & loved his sense of humor & rhythm. Rich has just released his spoken word album, Where I Come From. He's got the punk rock poet honesty down beautifully. Congratulations Rich I honor your work & your commitment!

 We saw James Brown @ the Hollywood Bowl. Wow.. That's all I can say. You haven't lived until you've seen James Brown cover Sammy Davis Jr. James was performing jazz standards on this occasion. It wasn't his usual funk material. James started early in his career as a vocalist singing standards. Along the way he stumbled upon his own vocal style & created a whole new sound. James Brown took the wet outta sweat. Some folks @ the Hollywood Bowl weren't ready for James singing standards & other people's songs. To see him @ the Hollywood Bowl @ 73 years old is something else. As he put it, "Tonight is for my heroes. Frank Sinatra, Dorothy Dandridge, Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr. I hope I'm yours, but these are my heroes." When he wasn't singing he did a bit of dancing & that got the loudest reaction from the crowd. It was an amazing night. Ernest Hardy in the L.A. Weekly broke it down like this.. He titled his piece on the show, Kansas Shitty Woman....

 Ernest Hardy writes with a fierce hand. His book just dropped. It's titled Bloodbeats:Volume 1 (Demos, Remixes & Extended Versions). It's a compilation of five years of his articles from theLA Weekly, Vibe, LA Times, The Source, Flaunt & several other publications from 1996 to 2001. In between articles he has interludes & some fun connecting stories that make the book not only a great history of late 90’s culture, but an insightful window into the soul of a great writer. Hardy & Ben Quinones are two of the best writers @ the LA Weekly.

 Oakland hip-hop stars Zion I have just collaborated with the Grouch from the Living Legends for a project called HEROES IN THE CITY OF DOPE. They just sent it to me & it's dope! Straight up one of the best hip-hop albums I have heard in some time. Veteran voices combining to tell real city stories. They sound like Heroes on this one.

 We got down in Historic Filipinotown @ the Tribal Cafe. The poet-painter B Fly hosted an evening of poetics in late September. Folks like Magdilla, PhiLLHarmoniC, Aaron & DJ Destroyer were in the building.

 Speaking of Historic Filipinotown, one of the greatest Filipino writers to put it down was Carlos Bulosan. Bulosan was a poet that lived a short life. He died @ 43 years old in 1956. His compelling book America is in the Heart, reads with the fire of Chester Himes work, "If He Hollers Let Him GO" written in the same year. Both books are about America & even more about Los Angeles. The clarity with which they both wrote was groundbreaking in the time of outright racism. A very informative intro is written by Carey McWilliams. McWilliams and John Fante used to hang tight with Bulosan in the LA Literary community of the 30's, 40's & 50's.

 Speaking of John Fante, I met his son Dan Fante. Dan has written three books himself. We shared the stage in downtown LA recently. I've read his book Mooch & also Chump Change. His prose is a lot like his father's & Bukowski’s but with a modern-day twist. His latest book is Short Dog. He's every bit as good as his dad. The first time Charles Bukowski found John Fante's work in the LA Central Library he said "it was like finding gold in the city dump." Three generations of Literary giants: John Fante, Charles Bukowski & Dan Fante.

 Mike Davis sent me an incredible article he wrote on the famous Sunset Strip Riots circa 1967. Check the intro into his article...

 "A moment in rock-and-roll dreamtime: Saturday night on Sunset Strip in early December 1967. Along that famed twelve blocks of unincorporated Los Angeles County between Hollywood and Beverly Hills, the neon firmament blazes new names like the Byrds, the Doors, Sonny and Cher, Mamas and Papas, and Buffalo Springfield. But the real spectacle is out on the street: 2000 demonstrators peacefully snaking their way west along Sunset into the county Strip than circling back to their starting point at Pandora’s Box Coffeehouse (8180 Sunset) just inside the Los Angeles city limits. On one side the boundary are several hundred helmeted and riot-visored sheriffs deputies; on the other side, an equal number of Los Angeles police, fidgeting nervously with their nightsticks as if they were confronting angry strikers or an unruly mob instead of friendly 15-year-olds with long hair and acne."

 ‘There’s somethin’ happening here’

 Davis proceeds to give a great history of the Sunset Strip and the famous Strip Riots of 1966-68. He was there in December '67.

 Another one of my favorite writers is Nelson Algren. He wrote about the underworld of America during the mid-century. My favorite work of his is Chicago: A City on the Make. It's an 80-page prose poem that was actually banned from Chicago when it was written in 1951. It's a lyrical love song to the city but the establishment at the time couldn't get past Algren's imagery of Chicago's underworld. Algren tells of gamblers, pimps, prostitutes, vice cops, broken-down fighters. He writes his ass off with bare bone breakdowns. His book The Man with the Golden Arm was made into a movie starring Sinatra. Read Nelson Algren.

 Here's a shout for Tyler Reeb & his publication The Southlander. It's an intriguing mix of poetry, essays on urban issues & short stories. Based out of Long Beach, The Southlander is a fresh mix of academic & creative writing. Some of the authors included in it are Alan Rifkin, Gerald Locklin, Lewis Macadams, Sarah Cruse, Christina Yu, Dragonfly, Mike Davis & LMNO.

Besskepp hardly sleeps. Besides being a very hard-working poet, he's a schoolteacher, father & football coach. The show he hosts, A Mic & Dim Lights, is about to celebrate it's sixth anniversary. BessKePP is a man of action.

 Ant Black is a great young poet based in San Diego. I originally met him @ Besskepp's gig, A Mic & Dim Lights in Pomona. Ant Black's crew is called Collective Purpose. Ant's partners are Chris London, Rudy Francisco & a few other committed heads. Together they host San Diego's most jumping open mic, ELEVATED, on the 1st & 3rd Thursdays @ the Arts & Entertainment Center off University Avenue in San Diego. 

Carla Vega is the Echo Park actress-poet-singer originally from San Francisco. She's active in the poetry, theater & dance community. One of the only readings on the Westside is Mosaic. A Venice native named Nicholas (aka Nicky Black) is the impresario. 

Poetronigirl is a poetry pioneer, and she don't stop. Roni has been at it damn near 20 years. She has a young spirit. Her latest reading is in the Valley on Ventura Blvd @ Panera Bread.

 Books! Recordings! Music, make it happen! We are the movement! Who's ready to get dirty?!!? One Global human family! One God Body Entity! One vehicle cipher! Let's take the word back one poem @ a time! One line at a time. Shake the core of many into one solid frenzy! Here's to the Visionaries, "We are the One's We've Been Waiting For."

 We can all be visionaries!
Assume your positions people!!
Feed the fire
consider the cost
take it up higher
the city is ours!!

GoD BleSS!!

Mike Sonksen -- Mike the PoeT

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