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audrey kawasaki reminds me that I was born a poor Black child

a u d r e y k a w a s a k iThe morning Blog reading led me to this photo (at left) that reminds me that “I was born a poor Black child” (an ironic quote from a Steve Martin movie). You see, peoples, my thang would be to pick up the phone and call the woman, audrey kawasaki, and ask about stopping by her place to watch her paint. No, kids, you don’t understand: suppose that Bryan just had sexual contact a few hours ago and he is really, really calling her up to stop by and really, really watch her paint.

The ancestors can teach you and those of my peoples tell me that woman means internal. Female means receiving. In order to have a receiving place you need to make a home. Look at the photo again. You see how audrey has a quiet place inside of a quiet place? Sometimes we just need to stop by the temple and really commune. It has been so disappointing to hear military women—who never joined the army—speak of home making like being a slave for a master other than themselves.

Now, to me, audrey kawasaki’s painting sucks (and this is one of many, many reasons why we will never have sexual contact). But her respectful, professional career goals are not my business—my point is that the image she chose to represent how she handles her business impresses me… Of her associates, the work of Mari Inukai is more attractive to me—but, as often these things go, Mari does not have a home Web site with a great photo of her working like audrey does. It seems from my great distance that audrey takes care of business as well as flirt with the muse… This sense of balance does not go disrespected by me.

Mobolaji OlambiwonnuNow, speaking of balance, Mobolaji Olambiwonnu has a better chance of hooking up with audrey kawasaki than any younger version of yours truly. It is more a matter of the economics and family planning that these two were born into. In fact, back in the day, you might find Mo with a fine, educated lady like this on his arm. Mo frequently has had fine, educated ladies to choose from—very ambitious ones with serious calculations and future solutions.

When many of these ladies run the numbers—and just because audrey is Asian-American don’t think I’m not referring to African-descended educated ladies as well—my person just does not register on the chart. I used to take this personally (very, very personally) but years later I see it’s more to do about cold class politics. Such productive, generative people are not just casual acquaintances that I can just call on for some cool company. This is why it’s very important that your parents made sure you had play dates with children of some non-broken home. Rich kids of a different kind of poverty take girls like audrey kawasaki for granted in their high-traffic, commerce-based lives. Basquiat painted the true faces of such “fortunate” and “beautiful” people and I take the results of his deadly investigations seriously.

Buy this DVD at Amazon.com!When you inherit from poverty, it is not just about a lack of hard cash. It is about poor human capital as well. You get a pile of garbage people to sift through when you come from the ’hood. Once you make the conscious decision to be young and Black, you will form deep, intimate psychological portraits of oppression through exhausting, wasteful, toxic, real-world relationships that can kill you before you get the chance to consider the possibility of what it means to achieve as an African elder. In case you don’t understand what the hell I have been writing here, just watch and listen to Chris Rock in Never Scared. I think some of his material is in this ballpark.

What’s worse is when you are like me. When you consider yourself, self-made (not pop-made), educated—and you are poor like no money-at-all-when you graduate-from-college poor—you actually groom self-made ‘educated’ opinions backed up with no bread—which gets back to why I think audrey kawasaki’s work sucks. So, it is not like there is some unquestioning awe hidden in me that is “desperate to make friends” of ex-suburban kids with attractive homemaking skills. In fact, it’s quite tragically the opposite. And I remind you, peoples, this tragedy is for me and the childhood of my children. May we all mature into more stability and generative power…

My respect for respect leaves this note for the home of audrey kawasaki her current paintings on display may suck but that does not mean she is not an engaging artist in other ways (not much of a consolation for the stereotypical control-freak artist that demands you like exactly what they want you to like)… Here in the kinté space we like the painting of June Edmonds and the filmmaking of Mobolaji Olambiwonnu to penny pinch.

*Note: *You may assume that it is cruel and uselessly petty to refer to an artist’s work with phrases like “it sucks.” What a jerk, eh? To me, what is far crueler is to “know” someone for years and they find out—despite your best efforts of condescending concealment—that you think their work—their life’s work—sucks. It is better to be quickly honest rather than a slow, amateur 007 caught red-handed in the panties in another turgid episode Missionary Position Impossible. Deception is a high-energy activity reserved for master Shakespearean actors. I leave the stage to the serious performers… And don’t forget: “the serious artist” may have a conscious understanding of change—this means that they won’t suck forever as long they keep on expanding…

Comments

Dis Guy, 2007-02-01 02:57:10

excellent blog!

rasx(), 2007-06-20 01:07:35

Hey! http://www.mariinukai.com/

rasx(), 2007-06-20 03:14:05

Ah! Her site appeared in April of 2007: FINALLY!MARIINUKAI.COM IS UP

rasx()