goddesses do not get traffic tickets

so i forgot to record "the hebrew hammer," natch, but i made it to the afro-punk screening last night. i was profoundly moved and affected by this film, like nothing else i've seen in recent memory. i was feeling the vibe from seeing all these ppl who grew up like me in the audience, all these similar experiences, seeing them there and on the screen was so like, yeah, rawk on! that's what i'm talking about. i turned to lyric and said to him, "this is my life up on the screen; that was me at fucking sixteen." the fear of going to shows back in those days (my 'days' would have been the very early nineties), the isolation, the experiences of being the one 'safe' black person your white friends knew (the whole "you're okay cuz you're not really black, you're jennifer" thing). racism was the main reason i dropped out of the scene after a couple years. i continued listening to the music on my own. it wasn't an easy thing to do cuz after that, i was nowhere. i lived in a small college town and i knew every punk, queer, and "waver" in town. so dropping out of the scene meant that i had no longer had a community. in a very real way, i was made aware of my blackness because of that experience (which i've never written about till now); listening to wrecks-n-effect was, for me, rebelling against a scene that wouldn't accept all of me. of course, the catch was, as i started getting to know black folks and being awakened to my blackness, i slowly came to realize that it meant that i never really fit, never belonged anywhere with anyone. anyway, i really felt tamar-kali, who recognizes that she's been on this journey, discovering the african aesthetic in the music scene through library books about african tribes, how she went from manic panic to headwraps; her experience most closely mirrors my own, sans guitar. that one girl, mariko, so naive about black ppl and her role in the community. that's how i came across back then, i'm sure. it's understandable, all this bullshit we internalize about our own ppl, but shit. and matt. poor matt. i kept wondering why his face was being shown in shadow, his natty dredz hiding his countenance. why they didn't reveal till his last scene how he'd died of a fatal heart attack back in august at the age of 26, although he never drank or did drugs. he came across as so warm, generous, talented and beautiful, and i could really relate to his fuck-everybody-but-god philosophy. matt, who lived his life simply but who seemed content with what he had, reminded me it's been two years to the weekend i've been back from denver and wasn't i supposed to be committing my life towards working for social justice at one point? didn't i vow to never get too comfortable, too satisfied, too complacent? matt reminded me that it's okay never to settle, that living by your values and yours alone is necessary if you're ever gonna be satisfied. (see what i mean? the same lessons, over and over again) i didn't know you, but from one afro-punk to another, happy birthday, matt. much love. you will be missed.