Essex Hemphill Was Not A Fiery Poet

A character in Felice Picano's novel,The Book of Lies (Alyson Books, 1999), which is loosely based on the members of a white gay male literary group called the Violet Quill*, states that in the 1980s "Essex Hemphill [the late black poet] had come up from DC" to do a reading at the Gay Community Center in New York and that "Essex was still doing his fire and brimstone act." 

The Essex Hemphill I saw at poetry readings in New York and Philadelphia wasn't doing a "fire and brimstone act." Picano's characterization of Essex does him a disservice. It makes Essex sound like some kind of demagogue. That approach would have turned off many black gay men. Instead, his eloquent, healing words boosted the morale and self-esteem of black gay men, thereby making him the foremost black gay poet in America, whose work has been widely anthologized and celebrated.

*Note: Felice Picano was a Violet Quill member.

Donald Trump, America's Savior?

Last November, President Donald J. Trump tweeted: "I am the candidate of...hard-working, law-abiding patriots of every race, religion and creed!"

How law-abiding and patriotic were those who stormed the Capitol building in D.C. on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 when the Congress was in the process of counting and finalizing the Electoral College votes?

The right-wing, Pro-Trump, Edmond,Oklahoma-based religious magazine The Philadelphia Trumpet declared, in a January 2021 article by Stephen Flurry ("The Radical Left's Ongoing Coup"), that "The radical left is making a coordinated, sustained, powerful, illegal, immoral effort to seize power over the United States!"

That description more accurately fits those thousands of white nationalists who terrorized and threatened elected officials and vandalized government property. All of this happened because they were unhappy with the 2020 presidential victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and felt that the election was stolen from Trump.

"Donald Trump," writes Gerald Flurry, the editor-in-chief of The Philadelphia Trumpet and writer Stephen Flurry's father, "certainly has his problems, and God sees those--but He chose him as a SAVIOR, temporarily, for America!" (Cover story, "Why Donald Trump Will Remain America's President," The Philadelphia Trumpet, January 2021.)

Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, would scoff at that idea. In her book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (Simon & Schuster, 2020), she describes her uncle's mindset--"the person with the power...got to decide what was right and wrong. Anything that helped you maintain power was by definition right, even if it wasn't always fair." Also, she writes,Trump believes that you must "be tough at all costs, lying is okay, admitting you're wrong or apologizing is weakness."

Does any of that make you feel that Donald Trump is America's savior?

Some Random Thoughts

Now that winter is here, the one good thing about it is I don't have to worry about a container of ice cream melting before I get home.

Is there an app for locating public restrooms in  New York City?

Maybe one day porn DVDs--gay, straight, and bisexual--will feature audio commentaries by the models and the directors and have behind-the-scenes footage. They already feature trailers. Also, will 3D porn movie theatres be the next craze?

Isaac Hayes and Lou Rawls began some songs with a long monologue. Shouldn't they be considered the first real rappers?

Have the people who call New York the world's greatest city been to every city in the world?  That's like a restaurant having a sign in the window that says "We Have The Best Hamburgers In Town." Have they eaten in every restaurant in town? How do they know?

When a pharmacy puts the word "Chemists" in their name, it sounds like they have test tubes and other lab equipment in a back room.

Mad Men, the dramatic television series about the advertising business in the 1950s and 1960s, during its seven-season run on AMC, took viewers back to a time when men knew how to dress: fedoras, three-piece suits, cuff links, and shoes, not Nike sneakers.

A Black Gay Poet Struggles Against Adversity

 Pressin' My Way (Shady Facts, $10) is a self-published book by Lawrence DeWyatt Abrams containing honest, vivid, and brave poems about what it means to be a double threat in contemporary America--black and gay.

In the lengthy introduction (which could use considerable cutting), a 27-year-old Harlem resident, writes that "it has been my words that have provided a healing salve for my most wounded spaces" and "very often [poetry] is the only thing that stands between me and insanity."

This rising young poet, who heads Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD), has created a book about spirituality, sexual identity, and love.

Among the best poems in Pressin' My Way are the comical "Fairy Queen" ("Take off those high heels/go in the bathroom/find some ivory/and wash your face/'cause blue is not your color."); the terrifying "Edge" ("Razor blade, you and I are old friends"); and "Somewhere Under the Bridge," the beautifully written homage to the late African-American poet Donald W. Woods, Abrams's mentor.

Despite adversity in its many guises, Larry Abrams reveals in this very slim volume (53 pages) that he is more than willing and able to continue to press his way.

Note: This article was originally published in the Manhattan Spirit newspaper on March 15, 1996  as part of its monthly Manhattan Pride lesbian and gay supplement.

Gay And Lesbian Audiobooks

Ron Hall of Seattle [in 1996] launched the first audiobook publishing company in the United States to specialize in gay and lesbian fiction.

The Hall Closet Book Company, thus far, has published only two mystery titles, available for sale or 30-day rental (with an option to buy): Fadeout, Joseph Hansen's first book in the Dave Brandstetter series and Hallowed Murder by Ellen Hart, from her Jane Lawless series.

Among the five books Hall Closet plans to bring out on audiotape this year are The Gifts of the Body by Rebecca Brown (a March release) and Blackbird by the African-American novelist Larry Duplechan.

All of the audiobooks, which Hall calls "dramatic reads" because the readers provide each character with his or her own voice, are unabridged. In a Seattle newspaper interview, Hall, a former bookstore manager, stated that he prefers offering books this way so that "the listener gets every word the author wrote, all the subplots and character developments, settings, and motives. It's a much richer experience."

Unfortunately, none of the tapes were made available for review in this column.

Note: This article was originally published in the Manhattan Spirit newspaper on March 15, 1996 as part of its monthly Manhattan Pride lesbian and gay supplement.

Thomas A. Dorsey, The Father of Gospel Music

Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993), who wrote more than a thousand gospel songs, among them "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," "If We Never Needed the Lord Before (We Sure Do Need Him Now)," and "Peace in the Valley," was called "the father of gospel music," a title he rightfully earned.

His most famous composition, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," became Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s favorite. The classic song has been translated into more than fifty languages. Dorsey wrote it following the death of his first wife who died during childbirth. The child too died shortly after birth. The song's words mirrored Dorsey's feelings of grief and depression.

Born in Villa Rica, Georgia, Dorsey, when he was in his teens, played the blues on the piano in bordellos, a fancy name for whorehouses. He later composed several blues and jazz tunes and became known by his stage name, Georgia Tom. According to Wikipedia, "In 1923, he became the pianist and leader of the Wild Cats Jazz Band accompanying Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, a charismatic and bawdy blues shouter who sang about lost love and hard times."

Dorsey created the term "gospel music," merging elements of the blues and the spiritual. So people who consider the blues the Devil's music should be reminded that its presence is in gospel music, thanks to Thomas A. Dorsey.

Note: This blog post is based on an unpublished biographical sketch I recently found. I wrote it on February 15, 1993. Some changes to the original have been made. I hope to do more research on Dorsey's life and musical career.

New York In The Before Times

Watching the marvelous 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada makes me long for the New York of the before times, meaning the pre-COVID-19 New York.

In the movie, starring Meryl Streep, we see people on the streets, in restaurants, fashion shows, art galleries, and in the workplace (the offices of the fashion magazine Runway) without a face covering, without social distancing, without a single hand sanitizer dispenser in sight.

If only we could bring back that New York ASAP!