Juba speakin at Love and Politics, July 30 Oakland

PeaceOUT: Performance,Promotion,
Persistence and the Politics of Queer Hip Hop Culture"

Juba Kalamka will deliver a lecture on how the dynamics of sex,class and race
within queer communities have informed the development of the international scene of independent
"homohop" artists.Q and A to follow.

-Potluck starts at 6pm. Main presentation at 7pm
- @ Niebyl-Proctor Marxist
Library,6501 Telegraph Avenue (between Alcatraz and 66th Street), Oakland
-To come by public transit, get off at MacArthur BART and take
the 40 Telegraph bus--it drops off near the location.
-The location is wheelchair accessible.
-We have not yet arranged childcare for this meeting:
if you need childcare, please contact Love+ Politics at
http://www.loveandpolitics.org

lateposting on my experience at AIDSwalk San Francisco

I wrote this for the SF AIDS Walk. they called me to read a poem.
I ended up reading another with less dense mataphors,but this one will get read at another program of theirs soon.


Quietus(Silences)

A dogwhistled conversation
Extended from a 70s Pan-Afrikan preschool
Coated with strains of Ella Jenkins
Floating to his first bathhouse jaunt
Mid 90s
Heart thumping to Frankie Knuckles rhythm
Throat catching
Thick with thoughts of what this would be
Yet no way around
This speaking with/out saying
It’s just the way, it seems
If you don’t know, you betta ask somebody
And somebody might tell you if youre lucky


The teens begin with
Eyecuts
Sideways gazing
“What-ups” keep my chin strong
Not giving away too much to any potential
Boyfriends
Friendboys
Or boys who are friendly
Or ex-wives their cuts to the chase
Or long and longer distance sistagirlfriends
Who begin exchanging their dashed hopes of
red black and green picket fences
For fifteen dollar Tuskeegee-isms that still mean "faggot"
Even when I am forgetting to remember


I am reminded of lynchmobs in Black History Month filmstrips
Bull Connor calling the freedom riders nigra
because that was somehow more polite
than saying what he meant

I knew who Mel was though mama wouldn’t say
Even though they’d been friends for thirty years
Just knew the way we know each other
And just like that it seemed
He was gone
Beaten to blood a month after we met

Fifteen years later
Losing words not quite as often
Almost famous
A bit heavier from too much smothered steak and theory
Mom and I talk about the week before they found his body
The frantic call
His cologne having broken his chest out
In purple blotches
My heart sinks but I manage to hold together a whisper
To convey the old truth he was afraid to tell
It works like magic
The magic that is work
And the weight begins to lift
As sharing this heavy makes us happy
Excitedly pulling the plastic off the new sofa
In this great big living room

Getting ready for the Stu-stu-studio

So I've been in a heavenly bliss since I got this new I Mac with Garageband, Wiretap and Sound Studio. I is a producer now!!!!

So I'm down to the time consuming part of soloing each part of the track so I can dump them to a CD for mastering in the studio. The freedom we have now is pretty incredible. Thus far I've done about 14 instrumentals, for Deep Dickollective, myself, Katastrophe and a track I'm doing with Robo Sapien.More news to come as the recording process begins in the next week.

Happy Birthday 2 me yesterday

Didnt get a chance to get here yesterday...but I'm gonna say happy birthday to me self. My sweety bought me a cake (and Set 1 of the 3 set "I Spy" episodes on DVD), my boss bought me lunch at the Korean barbecue spot, and I had drinks and hung out with my bruhs at the Ruby Room for a minute and had tasty whisky sours. It was a good day in an Ice Cube kinda way.:)

Juba Kalamka selected as Plenary Speaker for Creating Change 2005

http://www.thetaskforce.org/ourprojects/cc/plenary.cfm

Yours truly and bi activist Lorraine Hutchins are among the folks selected as plenary speakers for the 18th Annual Creating Change Conference, hosted the National Gay Lesbian Task Force, November 9-13 in Oakland, California.


About NGLTF:

Founded in 1973, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Foundation (the Task Force) was the first national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights and advocacy organization and remains the movement's leading voice for freedom, justice, and equality. We work to build the grassroots political strength of our community by training state and local activists and leaders and organizing broad-based campaigns to defeat anti-LGBT referenda and advance pro-LGBT legislation. Our Policy Institute, the community's premiere think tank, provides research and policy analysis to support the struggle for complete equality. As part of a broader social justice movement, we work to create a world that respects and makes visible the diversity of human expression and identity where all people may fully participate in society. Headquartered in Washington, DC, we also have offices in New York City, Los Angeles, and Cambridge. The Task Force is a 501(c)(3) corporation incorporated in Washington, DC. Contributions to the Task Force are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Inc. ("NGLTF, Inc."), founded in 1974, works to build the grassroots political power of the LGBT community in order to attain complete equality. We do so through direct and grassroots lobbying to either help defeat anti-LGBT ballot initiatives and other measures or help push pro-LGBT legislation and other measures. We also analyze and report on the positions of candidates for public office on issues of importance to the LGBT community. NGLTF, Inc. is a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation incorporated in New York. Contributions to NGLTF, Inc. are not tax-deductible.