Sunday October 5, 2003 was the day THINK AGAIN made its debut to the world – and it was a day to remember! The premiere was the culmination of the New York State Black Gay Network’s Statewide Training Institute in Syracuse, New York. I arrived in Syracuse on Saturday, left on Sunday and what follows are the highlights of that 24-hour period:
Saturday October 4, 4:30 p.m. At Syracuse airport chatting up G. Winston James.
I’ve known this cat for several years but never talked to him for an extended period of time. Handsome, slim, erudite and terribly aware of himself, Glenroy (that’s what the “G” stands for) is just what I adore in a writer. And the fucker can write. Pick up his book Lyric: Poems Along a Broken Road and see for yourself.
5:00 p.m. In my hotel room. A copy of THINK AGAIN is waiting for me on a desk courtesy of Colin Robinson. Oh God. It’s beautiful. I am too anxious and decide to put it down and not look for mistakes. I lay on a very fluffy bed that is far too large for my skinny lil’ body. My precious needs to be here.
6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Hang out with Herukhuti and Colin. Dinner at 6pm. Lots of folks here that I know from GMAD, POCC and some other folks in the field. I finally meet Kevin Trimell Jones face to face!
Kevin is sooo nice, so soft spoken and warm. And tall and dreaded with smooth chocolately skin. Kevin contacted me about the BGLA about a year ago. When I asked him to contribute to the volume, He did and it’s a great piece. We are joined by Herkhuti, G. Winston, Colin, and two other contributors to THINK AGAIN – Roderick Ferguson and Marvin K. White! And a nice cute guy named Xavier who isn't a contributor to THINK AGAIN but we let him sit with us anyway!
Another first: meeting and greeting Roderick. A professor at the University of Minnesota, he was able to get away to join us for the reading. Roderick, another fine and foxy man, is brainy as all-get-out, and vibrates intensity. He will be publishing a book in November called Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique published by the University of Minnesota Press. Get it get it get it!
And then there is Marvin. Dear, sweet, crazy-assed Marvin who is one of the funniest people I have ever met in my entire life. This man is a most excellent and hilarious dude who, like Herukhuti, Kevin, Glenroy, and Roderick, happens to be a hot sexy scribe to boot. He delights in making me laugh, and so he does all weekend long. You read his book of poems, Last Rights? If not, you’s missing out!
At the dinner table the conversation is always about sex, even when it ain’t about sex. Basically the exchange between Herkhuti, Glenroy and Xavier (website) dominates (very XXX), with an occasional comment tossed in by Kevin, Marvin or Colin. Roderick is quiet and adorable and probably still in a different time zone. Me, I drink half of a peach martini (thank you, Colin) and fuzz out a bit. Afterward its upstairs to Kevin’s Room (hardy har har) to talk about sex, the book and various members of the black gay community (who were not present which made it more juicy and funny.) Then I retire and nap.
11 p.m. I skip the jazz trio performance scheduled after dinner and instead go to the after party. Dance, dance, dance! I am a little disco duck on the floor (whack, whack, whack!) and my only interest is in making a complete fool of myself by conjuring up the spirits of old and new dances (The Smurf, The Rock, The Beyonce – oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-no-no!) The DJ sucks for the most part. He has no sense of what the fuck to play and has the uncanny ability to clear a dance floor just as you start getting your groove on.
1:30 a.m. Pizza and more hanging and then get thee to my fluffy bed!
Sunday October 5, 9:00 a.m. I lay in bed naked watching mountains in the distance. Most relaxing moment of the entire trip.
11:00 a.m. At the brunch we (the contributors) sign the book and give it to the attendees. We read, they listen, they clap, they ask questions, we field questions, everybody hugs! THINK AGAIN is a success! Yay!
2:00 p.m. Two hours before plan leaves. Sit around with some fab folk and talk about the inter-racial relationships between continental Africans, folks from the Caribbean and African Americans. Then something weird happened. Upon hearing us a hotel employee, a tall white male, interrupts our conversation by stating “What African Americans need to understand is…”
Herkhuti interrupted him and told him essentially that this is a private conversation and that it is inappropriate for him as an employee to enter our conversation uninvited and that he is not welcome. You are dismissed, he said. The guy walked off mumbling under his breath, red-faced. A couple of plan to write a letter to the hotel requesting that this employee be reprimanded. I doubt that he will be, but I want to stress that it was his sense of privilege gave him the NERVE to enter a conversation in the first place. I would never interject myself in anyone’s conversation. This type of obtrusive behavior constantly amazes me. A dialogue is one thing, forced one is another. This guy will probably never know his faux paux and read the whole incident as “touchy black people.”
4:45 p.m. On a plane home. Soon as I board and blink, I am back in the city. BTW, I hate JFK airport. Too big, dirty and far too complicated for this Harlemite.
Leaving from JFK: First I have to get the A Train, which is in my experience hasn’t been terribly reliable. Then I had to catch a shuttle to the terminal. The driver was too busy on his fucking cell phone to pay his me any mind that my plane was leaving in, oh I don’t know, 3 fucking minutes! When I got there I tried to do an OJ Simpson/Hertz Rent-a-Car and fly through the airport. Alas, those were OJ pre-killer days and now he’s probably shaken down on the regular. So there I was running around like a chicken, getting a boarding pass and being checked through the security system. Ok, I’m for that. Catch a highjacker, why don’t cha? Money out of my pockets, shoes off, fingers up the azz, standard procedure. But damn. These troglodytes hemmed me up asking me to sit down, stand up, hop on one foot, say the alphabet backwards, all while waving a magic paddle wand up and down my body. This qualifies as my worst experience ever at an airport anywhere, ever. LaGuardia Airport, let me take this minute just to say “I love you.”
8:00 p.m. Home. In bed (which I made fluffier by adding another comforter) exhausted, satisfied, looking at my copy of THINK AGAIN. Aaaah.
Monday, October 06, 2003 @ 04:56 PM