the one where i end up onstage with an oscar nominated film director/musician/crazy controversial genius

solidays music festival, paris. june 28th.



yes. that's me. holding a big as violin bow on a stage at the solidays festival in paris, full of serbian men. hold up. let me go back and explain a bit...

the best guitarist among directors, the best director among guitarists

born in sarajevo, emir kusturica has what reader daniel would call, 'the most bosnian name EVER!!'-- half islamic/half yugoslavian. kusturica is probably the most important film director in the balkans, love him or hate him. and he's as loved for his genius as he's hated for his pro-serbian politics. time of the gypsies and underground have garnered critical acclaim and won awards the world over. he's worked with johnny depp, on the film arizona dream. he's won multiple palme d'or awards at cannes, and was nominated for an oscar in best foreign language film for his film, when father was away on business. his next project is rumoured to be a biopic of pancho villa starring javier bardem.

kusturica lives in a world of his own. literally. he built a village, küstendorf, near the site of his 1997 film, life is a miracle.

küstendorf is a small multicultural, conceptual village in the uzice region of serbia, complete with homes, ski slopes, a church, a cinema, and curiously, a cake shop.

in kusturica world, home are quaint little log cabins and everything's made of wood. the streets are named after people he admires, like novak djokovic and diego maradona and you can only live there by invitation.

in kusturica world, like his films, everything is larger than life. bizarre. chaotic and filled with music. every scene plays out with a gypsy brass band in the background. the no smoking orchestra, the band he now fronts, was actually balkan folk brand that brought life to life is a miracle.

in kusturica world, violin bows are five feet long.

so how the fuck did i end up sharing a stage with genius?? it all started with 3 fingers...

how 3 fingers made me the envy of thousands...
so after about 100 festival goers rushed the stage during 'fuck you mtv!' (they were in all fairness, invited to rush the stage) i found myself enjoying the show from almost directly in front. about 1/2 hour in, the performance got particularly hot. i don't remember if it was kusturica's electric guitar, or a battle between the sax (he was like some sick jazz virtuouso who just happened to be gifted with folk music chops at birth) and the accordion. but i started dancing. then one hand went in the air.

completely of its own volition, that hand formed itself into the serbian three finger salute.

it's almost like a gang sign, formed by extending the thumb, index and middle finger. the serb does it sometimes in photos. i've never done it. i don't know where it came from. in a crowd where dudes were crowd surfing, topless girls with perky breasts perched themselves atop their boyfriend's shoulders (no lie), and everyone--tens of thousands of folks--was jumping and yelling, that 3 finger salute marked me. the entire band damned near stopped playing to point and wave at me. a minute later, the lead singer looks at me and gestures for me to go on stage. i shake my head, like, 'oh no!' i see a few girls, uninvited, jump over the railing and run to the stage. 'okay.' said the lead singer, 'but you too. you come.' he points at me again. next thing i know, 2 huge black security guards in red shirts and earplugs grab me under the armpits and haul me over the railing and onto the stage. i look out into the crowd. i can't see where it ends.

and... welcome to paris!

i was sitting at an outdoor café by the seine. high noon. drowning myself in sun, words, and café au lait. people-watching. a man walked by. looked at me. doubled back.

guy: vous êtes très jolie.

me: okay.... merci.

guy: you are english?

me: no. american.

[uninvited, he sits in the chair next to me.]

guy: i lived in new york.

me: oh really?

guy: yes, when i was 19. i lived on the upper west side... you know, right by the museum of natural history... wow, you are really beautiful.

me: you've said.

guy: this is the first time i've been attracted to a black american girl.

me: and you lived in new york?

guy: yes, but i was wasting my time there...

me: clearly...

guy: ...dating a jewish girl. a 'jap'. it was a phase.

me: seriously?

guy: you're amazing. i'd really like to sleep with you.

me: yeah. uh-uh.

guy: i'm very direct.

me: i appreciate that. but that's not going to happen.

guy: open your mind.

me: i can open my mind without opening my legs.

[he laughs. somehow, i steer him to the safer ground of the european union. he tells me that england, thatcher in particular, sabotaged the eu by insisting that the borders expand to include eastern countries. tool though he may have been, i am fascinated by this argument. i question him about this. i'm interrupted just as i'm about to bring the balkans into the conversation.]

guy: you're excited.

me: i'm not sure excited is the word i'd use.

guy: you're curious.

me: you're curious.

guy: you're entertained by me.

me: endlessly.

[i'm already thinking about how i'll blog this.]

guy: this exchange is kinky.

me: this is escalating at an alarming rate. we were only at excited just a minute ago.

guy: we'd be great in bed together, i think.

***

so, while i will not be sexing it up with any strange men in france, i will be out and about. tomorrow i'll connect with an old high school friend who happens to be running the menswear fashion trade show of the summer. sunday, is the solidays music festival: 3 days, 80 concerts against the AIDS epidemic. monday, i'll board a train to the south of france, james baldwin style... and the journey continues!!

lori tharps' kinky gazpacho: life, love, & spain

at certain times i have no race. i am me.
-zora neale hurston

this hurston quote, lifted from the opening strains of chapter 5 of the memoir in question, describes the expatriate experience in whole, perfect, and very simple terms. to live outside your country of origin is to live the uncanny. in the end, the expat life, the traveling life, doesn't really make you a different person. it reinforces facets of your character, sheds light on your strengths and weaknesses, casts you into relief. if you're fully engaged in the adventure, in adapting, you become more you. it's counterintuitive, and so sits as awkwardly in the mind, as the title of tharps' memoir, kinky gazpacho, sits on the tongue.

by contrast, kinky gazpacho: life, love and spain is the fluid, engaging story of how lori tharps' becomes a person in the world through travel, language, and relationships. much of tharps' conflict and angst revolve around the reconciliation of her childhood fantasies of spain, with it's harsh, racist, and xenophobic realities. (you'll be happy to know that spain as since learned more subtle, sophisticated forms of racism.) tharps embarks on a relentless quest to find belonging, a sense of self, and a coming to terms with blackness, armed with a journalist's knack for connecting dots. this leads her to an almost palpably satisfying climax of a historical discovery, as well as, (and this is no small thing), lasting love.

indeed, some of the best bits are her interactions with her junior-year-abroad-romance-cum-husband, manuel. as a couple, they must learn to navigate the rough waters of race relations together. how do you translate the untranslatable nature of, what tharps calls, "racial baggage"? especially to the ones you love? it's the story of tharps life, yes, but her life in a global context, with a backdrop that shifts from milwaukee to morocco, spain and back; a cast of characters ranging from young militant college students in new england, to freewheeling bohos in salamanca. as nieztche once said, ' a good writer possesses not only his spirit, but the spirit of his friends'. with each of their voices, kinky gazpacho pushes the limits of memoir genre, and enters the territory of [what i think should be] modern ethnography. on top of it all, unlike in marrying anita, tharps gets the guy. i'm just saying...

i received my hardcover copy from my mom last february, who thought i'd enjoy it, and sent it in one of her gi-normous care packages. i read it in one day.*

the paperback is out. cop it.


*not just saying this cause tharps showed me big love. it's a true story.

exotics, iconics, and mu-u-s-i-i-c!!

summer time in europe means music festivals!! i went to my first real european summer music festival in 2001. the hackney music festival in england was taking place on my birthday. an impossibly crowded train ride, loads of weed smoke, 6 veggie hot dogs and a pee in the woods later, i'd screamed into biz markie's microphone (i got another brother that's calm and plain/he goes by the name of the big daddy kane!), and fallen in love with french rap, after seeing mc solaar perform alongside guru from gangstarr. summer music festivals are one of the things i love most about europe. the size and scale (hundreds of bands! hundreds of thousands of people!) necessitates variety. many mash ups of many sorts. djs, dancers, singers, visual artists, kitsch, clashes, and many many drunk people from places where people should not drink. like finland. or england. or iceland. or anywhere that ends with a 'land', which is a clear indication that normal life is so staid that when they hit the bottle, well, the bottle ends up hitting them. and the results are at times disastrous, but often just really funny, for everyone involved. if you're into music, and won't cry if you end up stepping in someone's vomit, or if the smell of smoke lingers in your pores for a week after, it's all very cute boys, new music, and opportunity. my favorite time of the year here.

getting to it...
this weekend was the sonár music festival, barcelona's biggest and most electronic. by day or by night, the 3 day festival had the city buzzing, dancing, and had the rest of the world taking notes. check flavorpill's twitter feed for some really great minute-by-minute minutes on the all of the music, all of the action, albeit from a slightly annoying 'tapas are the best idea ever!' and 'what's this milky drink?', fresh off the boat perspective. for me, it was all about friday's headliners grace jones and buraka som sistema.

on mrs. jones., i learned 4 things.

1. she's not real

her high cheek bones, wide eyes, the face of a doll--it's not just photography tricks. her legs and ass are those of a 25 year old woman. and not in an overly worked out sort of way. in a, like, 'i lay around on the beach eating oysters and drinking cava and i just got good genes' way. or, rather, a 'some brilliant artists carved me out of pliable stone' kind of way. if she seems to have been objectified over the years, part of it must be that there is no way anyone's that perfect. part of it must be that she is, indeed, un-fucking-real.

2. grace jones can hula hoop...
straight through a 10-minute remix of slave to the rhythm.

i thought of the dozens of feminists and anti-racism 'activists' whose only aim in life is to point out the 'deeply problematic' nature of such things. things like singing songs about slaves or taking pics like these...

reinforcing images of black women as primitive. as animals. but then i stopped thinking about it, because the woman is, like 50, and she was hula hooping for 10 minutes straight. she walked around stage, introduced her band, all while keeping that damn hula hoop up. i think i'm going to require that anyone who wants to discuss black women's images in pop culture, first prove their worthiness to engage in such high stakes talk, by hula hooping for 10 minutes. that's control.

3. grace jones is a class act.
an act which was, technically, over. the band had left the stage. all of the light were on. stage hands had begun dismantling the stage in preparation for the next act. and grace jones reappeared. smiling, jovial, not fierce at all, to say thank you for coming out. for a full five minutes, she posed, waved, reduced grown men to blushing byatches, with a point and a 'you are too cute!'. she talked to us in english, french, spanish, italian, and a little bit of jamaican patois. which contributed greatly to thing #4...

4. i really like her. her carriage and grace. her complete control over hula hoops, language and most of all, her image. (yes, i credited her some agency.) made me proud to be one of the 5 black chicks in the audience. shit. i realize i've even channeled her on occasion.


buraka som sistema, revisited
it may be that because i live a life that's, if anything, on the atypical side, i fully expect to be able to ask grace jones, one day, about her experience of shooting the cage photo, about objectification, and how she lives and breathes her iconographic status. you know, actually giving her some say, like an actual person. i know this like i knew, when i saw buraka som sistema perform last year at sonár, that they'd become my friends. now here's me, friday night, backstage with the ever-so-clever, dj riot.


the definition of grinding: buraka sound system began as dj duo, riot and lil john. they mixed the angolan sound of kuduru with electronica, techno, house, hip hop, calypso, samba and everything else under the sun to create the most danceable hybrid you've never heard. along with producer and mc, conductor, the best hype man in the biz since flav, kalaf, and assorted mc's from africa, brazil, and portugal, they've created a sound for both the seaside clubs of europe where electronic music rules, as well as the streets of any urban ghetto anywhere. buraka released in search of the black diamond in '08, to much critical acclaim. fast forward to now, summer festival season '09. it's no longer a quick dj set between main acts. it's main act. it's hour-long sets with riot on percussion. here's a reminder of why i love them so much.


more race meets sex meets immigration shenanigans...
i was slightly disappointed to note that the darker, thicker mc saborosa who appears in the video has been replaced by a mixed-looking skinny girl, whose booty manipulation was appreciated by all. (i'm not going to lie. including me. her ass was the only thing on her that was NOT skinny.) that said, sometimes, no, most of the time, african artists have difficulties getting visas to perform in europe and america, which in turn makes consistent touring (the very source of an artist's income) impossible. this has been the case for buraka, who've had to postpone, or scale down multiple shows in the last year, due to the visa issues of their angolan collaborators. congolese band, konono nº1, were no-shows at last year's sonár, citing difficulties obtaining visas for europe. (this year, i heard they rocked the walls of the museum of contemporary art, with a searing 2 hour set.) could be the explanation for the lighter skinned (brazilian? portuguese?) female mc. never the less, it was exactly the level of hotness i expected, complete with lil jon standing on the dj table in triumph, and the audience singing the portuguese and angolan-language lyrics of songs like 'wegue' and 'sound of kuduru' phoneme-for-phoneme.

next stop: solidays festival in paris!

loving day!! the serb's born day!!

so, mr. and mrs. serb, your son is the best basketball player in the world. but with dual citizenship, american and serbian, he has a choice to make. which country do you think your son will play on in the next olympics? do you have a say?

[it's a fake ESPN interview, 20 years from now. the serb's friend paul shoves a microphone, which is really his fist, in the serb's face. he waits for an answer as everyone in the room giggles.]

i'll trust him to make his own decision...

********
when serbians talk about black people, they usually reference the influx of african students during the 1980's as part of an exchange among the non-aligned countries (those not aligned with either super power, having taken no sides in the cold war). before the balkan war, students from all over india and africa, as well as refugees from countries like chile, migrated to the balkans to take advantage of european caliber universities with none of the colonial history, or racism that came with it. either they're talking about the nonaligned students, or basketball players. and not in a 'white men can't jump'/all black men play ball type of way. it's more like, 'the only people on earth who might play basketball better than serbs, happen to be black'. all of europe loves some football/soccer. serbia loves itself some basketball. i haven't met many serbs that don't play, at least for fun. and as paul conducted his fake interview, i thought, 'whoa. he's not saying this because i'm black but because he's serbian [and a baller]... now this is a shift.'

lately, i've been getting into it on various blogs on the subject of interracial dating, and the difference between a preference and a fetish, and whether or not a relationship that begins with a preference can end in true love. on one blog, i asked, 'if my white boyfriend said he likes my black girl ass, how would that be different from the many black men who fixate on that part of my anatomy?' my only aim to disrupt the compulsion to cry 'foul' at every expression of preference.

the answer i was given was that because of the 'the' historical power dynamics, the former situation was... i don't remember the exact words, but bottom line? if a white man 'prefers' black women it could not be true love, and was in fact fetishization and objectification and all those other really bad '-ations'. really, the only '-ation' we needed to be talking about was 'imagination', or the lack thereof, and the idea that relationships, interactions are these one dimensional, non-breathing things to be put in a box and labelled. talk about objectification!

the funniest thing, was that everyone arguing with me assumed i was talking about my relationship. started talking about, 'your boyfriend objectifies you by talking about your black girl ass', which is hilarious, because the real serb wouldn't know the difference. never even dated a girl who wasn't serbian before me. he only recently discovered, during a shameful 4 hour mtv binge, that both beyoncé and estelle are examples of gorgeous black women albeit in totally different ways.

they couldn't imagine my serb, who, when we first met, and i asked, 'where are you from?', hesitated to tell me. 'my country, we're the bad guys on cnn,' he said in answer. watching my face carefully for a reaction.

they couldn't imagine that scene. this giant beautiful man, nervous in the presence of a diminutive-by-comparison american girl because he thought she might judge him based on his ethnicity. the irony. his preoccupation intrigued me. felt, and continues to feel familiar.

interracial relationship skeptics couldn't imagine that we have not all sprouted from the same historical roots, that power dynamics shift, and that the world looks really different from different angles.

that actually 'black' in the balkans doesn't really come with the same laundry list of negative stereotypes as in america, for example.

the worst thing of all though, was that it seemed deep down, underneath all the arguments and -ations thrown around the forum, was a belief that if someone loves a black girl, there must be something wrong.

they couldn't imagine someone just loving a black girl.

shame.

me? i'm celebrating two things today: the loving decision and the birthday of my serb.

anti americanism

i've got a mastering your expat life post in the works. and i've been working on, you know, mastering my expat life. so i leave you with this thought for the next day or two. or three.

wanna move abroad?

consider this: being american abroad post 9/11 (even this far post) is crazy. and challenging. crazy challenging. there's always so much to assimilate. in the space of a day, 'american' can mean everything from ignorant to cool, (especially when you're anything-but-white, because largely, people still think of america as white), to an ironic decal on the t-shirt of a teen girl that reads...


'eat this'.

even this far post, it stings a little.

*that's my decidedly un artistic rendering of said girl's yellow t-shirt. for the slower among us, those are the twin towers, the planes, and the golden arches of mcdonald's.